Hospice or Hospital?

When we are sick and go to the hospital, we go there with the intention of getting well, that we would be healed. To be at the hospital requires humility, an understanding that in order to get well we need help, that we must trust the doctors and nurses who are treating us. When we go the hospital we have a goal in mind, that we would be healed, so that we can go out into the world and live. People leave the hospital with their health changed for the better, ready to change the world.

I have heard people describe the church as a hospital for sinners. As Christians we know we can’t make it on our own, that we need the help of the great physician in order to have life to the full.
Similar to hospitals are hospice care centers. They do an incredible work in these places. They help people who are dying; they make them comfortable in their last days. When one goes into hospice care they are preparing to die.
So when we think of what the church is or what it should be; do we act like a hospital for sinners or do we act like a hospice for sinners? Do we worship God to be challenged and changed or do we worship him to be comfortable in our last days? We are not called to live in spiritual hospice care; we are called to be transformed into His likeness, to experience the comfort, joy, and salvation that can only be found in Him. We are not spiritual hospice care, we are a hospital & rehab center that celebrates the life that God gives us. As the church, we connect with the God who changes us, and who gives us new life. Now that He has transformed and healed us, let us go out and transform the World.

Some of the thoughts on hospice care were inspired by the book Transformational Church, written by Thom Rainer and Ed Stetzer.