Recently I've been reading the book Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal. In it, the author challenges his readers to think about church differently. But what does it mean to think about church differently? Well, for one thing we can think differently about the way we measure success. Traditionally, a successful church was known to have increasing membership and increasing resources. McNeal suggests that the true measure of a church is the amount of blessings the church shares with the community and the world. McNeal writes:

The emphasis on the scope of this blessing highlights two things: the unlimited reach of the blessing and its unqualified nature. Followers of Jesus have inherited this blessing, meaning we are free to bless everyone and responsible for blessing everyone. This includes people like us and people not like us, people we like and people we don't like, people who share our values and people who don't. You get the point.

McNeal writes about being blessing agents and having a blessing strategy. How many people can we bless today? I'm not suggesting that we completely abandon the old model of success. I would love to see us grow in numbers and resources! And certainly it is easier to bless more people when we have more members and more money. But I do like McNeal's point that our energy should be going toward blessing rather than survival. A blessing can be a smile at the check-out counter, letting someone get ahead of us in traffic, or a small donation made to a worthy cause. It seems to me that when we bless, our blessings will be returned.

What do you think? Can you be a blessing agent? How many people can you bless today?