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Does Your Church Have Water Fountains?

Orginally published on Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 1:00 PM
by Todd Rhoades

An amazing thing happened a couple weeks ago. It was the opening day of the University of Central Florida’s new football stadium. This new $55 million dollar facility is a beauty. It has seats for over 43,000 screaming football fans, and on this day, every seat was filled. But something wasn’t right at the first game ever played in the stadium just outside Orlando. People were fainting. Actually, over a dozen people needed to be treated on this not surprisingly hot day in central Florida. According to news reports, emergency workers passed out free cups of water, but the hot temperatures were just too much for some people. Sounds like a sad story. Things like this happen on hot days. What’s so amazing about this story? I’m glad you asked...

You see, the new $55 million dollar facility was built with no water fountains. Not one. According to a local fire official, “We don’t have water fountains on the property here. So going to the water stations and making purchases of water or bringing bottled water with you is paramount.”

The obvious question is: “How do you build such a massive facility (in Orlando, FL of all places) and not allow for hydration of the 40,000+ people who will be utilizing the facility?” When you add the fact that there were no water fountains, the reality that people suffered from heat exhaustion is suddenly much less surprising. The stadium actually ran out of the $3.00 bottled waters from vendors as well. The University has openly apologized for ‘underestimating the need for water’.

When it comes right down to it, the church is in the water business as well. Only we don’t serve up refreshment that comes from water fountains, we offer the Living Water that Jesus talks about in John 4. They type of water that we offer causes people to, as Jesus puts it, ‘never thirst again’.

So why is it that so many of our churches are dead? Why are so many churches declining? And why is it that many times we aren’t seeing major advances in our communities through the local church? It could be that we’ve built many of our churches without water fountains.

When week after week, month after month, and year after year, it seems that no one finds and accepts Christ in many of our churches, could it be that we’re not readily offering up the refreshment and water that they need? Are we expecting them to buy or find their refreshment somewhere else? And are we, by our actions and leadership, just getting the results (or lack of results) we deserve?

There are many churches that are doing a great job of introducing people to Christ. They are seeing outstanding results evangelizing their towns and cities, and building strong, competent disciples.

Then there are others, who, like the University cited above, need to apologize for ‘underestimating the need for water.’

My question for all of us today is… in which category is your church?

Have a great week,

Todd

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There are 5 Comments:

Posted by Peter Hamm

Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 4:23 PM

GREAT metaphor! Let’s take one step further

What kind of town lets you build a public facility with no water fountains?

What kind of church should even LET itself continue without offering that “living wather"…
Posted by

Monday, September 24, 2007 at 7:31 AM

Todd,
once again you hit the nail in the coffin. I can’t understand why churches continue to suffer itself and members to preachers who don’t preach a fresh word. A water fountain doesn’t serve you old water, but it serves you fresh water. We have many churches that’s serving it’s members water that’s old and dry through corroded pipes.

I once attended a church where it was dry and very dry (sort of like the dead bones in the valley). I mean everything thing was try, the devotional singing, the preaching; everything was just dead and dry. Not to mention the membership was an old congregation (60 years and older). My family was the youngest family at the church (my wife and me are 30 years onld) That church is truly on the decline with very few youth and no water supply. My family dreded going to that church.

When a church looses it’s testimony it’s no service for God. My Bible tells me when the Word was preached men were added to the church daily. And when you have a church that doesn’t receive any new converts something is wrong. It’s not enough to recieve one convert per year. I say its not enough because the streets and gangs are recruiting 1,000’s daily.

The churches that are dying are the churches that’s not offerring fresh water…
Posted by

Monday, September 24, 2007 at 9:04 AM

I had a college professor( Bible college) who pointed out to us that there is no such thing as new water. All the water that is on earth has been here since creation. I know about evaporation and condensation, but the point is that man does not have the ability to make water. All water comes from God, the only difference is the way it is delivered to us. We are all delivering the same water. The question is whether we are presenting living water or stagnant pond water. The only way we can deliver living water is if we personally have a connection to the source. Remember living water doesn’t have to be pumped, it flows. If you’re working hard at pumping the water you deliver, you might want to examine your source.
Posted by

Monday, September 24, 2007 at 9:20 AM

the word “fresh” was used not “new”
there’s a difference in the two.

I do have a question to ask regarding old water. You stated, “there’s no such thing as new water...” How would you classify the water that comes down in the form of rain?

fresh vs. old.... would you rather eat a fresh or stale piece of bread? When I refered to fresh, I’m talking about the preacher going down on his knees before God and recieiving a Word to speak to today’s situation. Too many preachers recycle their sermons, “that is, year after year they preach the same sermon and get the same results. When you read the Word of God, God reveals something different everytime.

Yes God is the water supplier (source), but many fail to tap into His source…
Posted by

Monday, September 24, 2007 at 10:14 AM

I think we’re saying the same thing here. The water that comes down as rain is not new. If you read up on the water cycle, you can see that all water is old. The water on the earth evaporates into vapor, rises in the atmosphere where it condenses back to liquid and falls back to the earth as rain. It’s the same water we’ve been using since the creation, it’s just gone through a purification cycle and come back to replenish the earth. There’s lots of good devotional material here. I didn’t use the word fresh, I used the term “living water”. The water many churches provide is not the living water that Jesus promised.

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