If we truly believe our goal, and responsibility is to spread the Good News, and make disciples -- then we should be measuring our success not in numbers in the pews, but by how many are in the field proclaiming the Gospel, and how many disciples are at work in our family of faith, teaching and making more disciples. We should be focused more of the growth of faith infants, than the care of mature saints -- we should be focused on the dead, rather than those who are alive in Christ. Our focus then is still the cross -- but not as a reminder of Christ's suffering, but as a challenge for us to lay down our life so that someone else might live, and at the very least, that we might forgive as we have been forgiven.
So as we go forward, into the depths of Eastertide, let us do so as Christians on a mission, not having reaches a pinnacle of excellence on Easter morning, but going forward and proclaiming and producing the Gospel. Going forward and spreading the unnatural news of Grace and Mercy that is our very life. Amen