Topics: Church; Community; Cooperation; Involvement; Ministry; Spiritual Gifts
Reference: Romans 12:3–8
The University of California at Berkley agreed to coordinate an international effort to locate extraterrestrial life.
To accomplish this impossible task, Berkley asked home computer users around the world to contact them over the Internet and download a program called SETI@home. The SETI software makes a connection over the Internet to a computer in California and downloads a “work unit”—that is, a set of measurements from a particular part of the sky. The work unit is not large, but it takes the computer a while to crunch the numbers.
When the work is done, the computer makes another Internet call to Berkeley, uploads its results, and downloads a new work unit. What today’s largest supercomputer could never do alone, over a million ordinary home computers can easily do.
Sometimes the best way to accomplish the impossible is to harness the help of the ordinary. That is precisely how the church works best. No one can do it alone, but if we each do what we can, the unattainable becomes attainable, and the church can be all that God intended it to be.
—J. Kent Edwards, “Accomplishing the Impossible,” PreachingToday.com