February 19, 2020

Do you know what a legacy is? It's that thing we leave behind that is all summed up in how we lived and how we behaved in life. It encompasses our achievements. It entails the impact we made on this earth.

We see in different cultures how stories handed down from generation to generation build such strong bonds. How we do things and hand them down from generation to generation in our churches also shows our children and those coming after us what is important.

The way we go about preparing our church events will be passed down to our children and the next generation of church ministry workers. I wonder what it will say about this church generation. Will our children have to scrape off the mess we have made before they can make their own legacy? Or will we leave a good foundation for them to improve upon?

I have done a lot of simplifying over the last few years. I've gotten rid of old clothes and old things that have been hanging around the house, the garage, and the patio. I frankly don't want my kids to have to go through my stuff when I pass on from this life. I want everything to be in order. And I'm careful too how I live because I want to leave a good reputation behind. I want my life to matter.

I think we should start thinking about this in our churches as well. What are we going to leave the next generation with when it comes to our churches and our church events? The next generation will of course change things. That's what happens. That's how life works when the next generation starts taking over an area. But what are we leaving them to work with when it comes to how we have handled events and activities in our churches during our time of being the ones in charge?

I've been mulling this over for some time and I think these are the things I would want us to leave behind.

Let's Leave a Simple Legacy

• Let's leave a legacy of people focused events.
• Let's leave a legacy of Bible based events.
• Let's leave a legacy of well-planned events.
• Let's leave a legacy of less stressful events.
• Let's leave a legacy of good time-managed events.
• Let's leave a legacy of good budget-managed events.
• Let's leave a legacy of simple effective events.

If you look and read through Psalm 78, you will see all the things that the Lord did for the children of Israel. Not just that, but it talks about their "fathers" and how they were a "stubborn and rebellious generation". The psalmist implores the people to tell these things to the next generations so that they could take heed to all that had happened in the past.

For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. Psalm 78:6-8

Wow! Powerful stuff in that psalm that will really make you think about the past and what we leave for the future generations.

We have the ability to build a culture here. We have the ability to do it right. We have the ability to choose the steps that those behind us will be following. Let's keep it simple. Let's build a legacy to spread the Gospel and show God's love through our churches in a simple but meaningful way.

Copyright ©2020 Julia Bettencourt

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