The AMCC (Part 2: The Found Sheep)

In Luke 15:1-7, we find Jesus telling Pharisees and the teachers of the Law a parable about the lost sheep. Notice by the title, I’m going to reverse the parable.

The summary of the parable in Luke 15:1-7 is that one who goes looking for the sheep that’s lost and that heaven rejoices over the one sheep that was lost is found. Those in the AMCC rejoice more over the found sheep than they do the lost sheep. Remember in Part 1 (using myself as the example for this): the AMCC would consist of me, my family in my clique. The AMCC focuses on ensuring the safety of the 99 sheep that are found and let the one sheep that’s lost stay lost and they don’t even get prayed for (unless it’s someone within their own circle, then they’ll call everyone to prayer cause it’s part of their clique). Tragically, the one who’s lost and on their way to hell, doesn’t even get prayed for, and then have the nerve to point a finger when they don’t even go to church. I experienced something like this in 2011 when I had a heart for someone, and many people who are plagued with the AMCC mentality told me to let that person that’s lost go, we care about ensuring you remain part of the found sheep. Again, if it was someone within their family, we pray. It’s easy to be in the AMCC because is structured and comfortable. And if a person has a leadership role within the AMCC, it’s definitely a place of comfort and a position of power (and everyone beneath must submit).

The AMCC is one that is focused on ensuring that the gifts and talents of members who attend this church, stay in the church (for some churches, it’s called the law of consecration). All of your times, gifts and talents must be used for the service of the local church, denomination, and for the building of the local church (to make the church and the pastoral team look good). If you dare to step outside that box, you are set apart because you’re making an impact not only in the local church and environment around you (and you’re not looking for attention). But the pastoral team and leaders within the community aren’t getting the glory that they want – and that’s typically the mentality of the AMCC. My former church was a great example of this: they were focused on the found sheep and if we did go and witness to someone, it was to bring them to church and let the pastor indoctrinate them to his teachings (of course, his prayers for people who wanted to know the Lord were along the lines of submitting to his teachings – that men be the lord over the house and slap their wives if they don’t submit to his teachings).

In my current church, we had a guest preacher from New Orleans around November of 2012 and he talked about what I’m talking about since the last part of 2011 (I will focus on what he said in Part 3). The tragedy is that no one really wanted to talk about the lesson after the service after church; they were focused on ensuring that a seat was occupied, they had favor with the pastoral team and that they were on the role of attendance.

I will close Part 2 with something Joyce Meyer said (I don’t agree with everything she says, but she hit this on the nail). She said this, in quote: “there’s someone around you that you’re giving up on, don’t give up on them because it’s the most comfortable thing for you. Make sure you go to God and ask Him if He wants you to give up on them. Are you ready for me to turn my back on this person and walk away? We say we want to be used by God, but do we really? Do you really want a ministry? We beg God to use us for His glory, to show us our calling and our ministry; but we don’t want to be around sinners or anyone that makes us uncomfortable. We don’t want to stick with people that don’t just make us feel icky and give us goosebumps all the time! We have to get to the point where we say, I’m not here just to make myself happy. And you’re just going to have to be uncomfortable at times.”

She just told us how to break free from the AMCC mentality. Stay tuned for Part 3.