Significant or Silent?

There have been some serious thoughts bouncing around in my head lately. These thoughts have come from several books that I am reading. Those books are: Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna; Real Church by Dr. Larry Crabb; and Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Also, several speakers at the Pastors Conference last week in Louisville reiterated what I have been thinking about. And, you ask, what is that?

If our church were to close it's doors for good tomorrow, would anyone in the community notice? Would they care? Have we become so insignificant in our communities that they pay absolutely no attention to us? Or have we become so self-centered on ourselves and what we want that we have failed to pay any attention to our community?

I am as conservative as they come, yet I feel like we could use a good dose of liberalism. However, not a dose of liberal theological liberalism, but the kind of liberalism that causes us to serve others generously and passionately. Oftentimes people do not listen to us because we have shown little or no concern for their needs. Matthew 25 is plain that when we feed, clothe, tend to the sick, visit prisons, etc., we are doing it as unto Jesus. It is messy work but where did we ever get the idea that we should not get a little dirty and messy serving others and Christ?

Evangelism takes time and you never know where you are at in the process. You may be breaking up hard soil and removing rocks. You may be preparing the field to receive the seed,. You may be out pulling weeds that could choke out the good stuff. Or you may be spreading fertilizer or weed control to aid the plants growth. But then one day, you go out and are ready to receive a harvest. The only issue in all of this, is that each day you do not know what you may be doing and what God has been preparing for you.

All of this is written towards the goal of getting us out into the community to see how we can serve and help meet needs. Then people can see our love in action and I believe that as a result they will be open to God's work in their lives. I am not advocating relational evangelism to the exclusion of other "styles" of evangelism. I am just stating that we need to always be intentional in looking for opportunities to share the Gospel. It may be through acts of service or through short or long-term relationships. I really believe that too many of our communities think, rightly or wrongly, that we do not care about them and their problems. We need to re-engage with our communities and begin looking for where we can serve Christ as a means to reach people for the glory of God. As someone once said, "People do not care how much we know until they know how much we care!"

Just Thinking,

Joe