are you in or are you out?

There’s just something about being in a group or club that cost you something.  When I was in college, I belonged to a fraternity and it felt good to belong to a group that not everyone was a part of.  Anyone that knows anything about fraternities of sororities knows that you have to be sponsored be someone already in the group that vouches for you and they say that you would be an excellent addition to our group.  However, this does not guarantee a spot in the group. First, you must rush, in my case for a week, where your fellow brothers, as they are known, can get you to do pretty much whatever they want.  Then they drill you with questions in an interview and if they like you, you’re in!  You are now part of the brotherhood!  You’re a big dog on campus now.  You’re part of an exclusive group that many want to be a part of and yet only a few ever get to opportunity to join. 

Not much has really changed since my days as a member of the Phi Simga Cia fraternity.  Yes, I am no longer a college student who likes to hang with my brethren, but I am part of another exclusive group, the church.  In many ways, the church feels a lot like my fraternity, for we have the tendency to be exclusive as well. 

Many members of the church world will call themselves the insiders and they want to separate themselves from the outsiders.  We don’t dare say we’re exclusive, but it’s how we act that gives that perception.  We have set in place external practices that separate us from the outsiders – our vocabulary or dress, who we associate with, and so on. 

We have become proud and judgmental toward the outsiders.  We often pride ourselves on how righteous we are, so much so that we can just look at someone and tell right away whether they are an insider or outsider.  However, with Jesus, the leader of the church, this wasn’t the case at all.  His messages and mission was to have everyone be an insider.  Not just to belong to an elite group of people that are super spiritual, but to belong to a group of people that wanted to be transformed into “new creatures”.  Jesus didn’t focus on what someone looked like or how they acted, rather he looked at the persons heart.

I have been a part of some wonderful churches in my life and every one of them has added to my spiritual walk with Christ.  Nevertheless, each one of them, some more than others, had their own bench markers.  Some of them could have had a pastor consumed with pride and was a glutton, but as he was growing or at least maintaining the church, he need not worry about his job.  But if by chance a church member saw him on the golf course smoking a cigar with a friend, you wouldn’t see him next Sunday at church.  Why is that?  Well probably no one would ever say that smoking a cigar on the golf course would be a worse sin than a life consumed with pride or a glutton.  Although for many in the church world smoking has become a bench marker for many.  It is one of the churches ways to tell if you are a wolf or a sheep. 

We all know that smoking is not the unpardonable sin, but it breaks many churchgoers unspoken bench marker.  Something like this could upset a church’s sense of identity.  It doesn’t matter really if you are Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or Greek Orthodox I bet you can come up with your own set of bench markers.  This type of spirituality puts most of the focus on your position.  Are you in or are you out? 

However, Jesus is more concerned with people’s hearts.  He wants to know that they moving forward in their spiritual life, do they have the love of God and their fellow man in their life.  That is way many people were shocked in his day when He said that many of the religious leaders were outside of God’s kingdom, because they were more concerned with the bench markers than peoples heart.  John Ortberg in his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted,” said it well.  He said “The ‘righteous’ were more damaged by their righteousness than the sinners were by their sin.”

is the church keeping us from fulfilling the great commission

Question, “Is the church keeping us from fulfilling the great commission that’s found in Matthew 28:18-20 18Jesus came to them and said I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. (CEV) Look at the first few words of verse nineteen carefully, “go to the people…”  Now this does not say wait for the people to come to you, while you sit inside your pretty church – but rather it says to go to them.  Meaning we are to get off the padded chairs/pews that we sit on and go to them. 

I love to read church signs, for the simple fact that they make me laugh most of the time and for no other reason.  I have been a Christian now for twenty seven years and I have never once visited a church because of what a church sign has said, whether it talked about a revival or whatever.  And I bet for the most part not many others have either. 

So what makes us think someone who is not a Christian is going to step inside our church because of a sign or because our church has a pretty curb appeal?  I have been around and part of a church my whole life and walking up inside of a new church I visit for the first time scares me to death.   In addition, let’s be truthful, most of us are pretty bad ambassadors for Christ, once we are inside the confines of the church building.  We fail miserably at really making someone feel welcomed.  We rather see the same person, asking them the same questions that we asked them the last time we saw them in church – instead of talking to someone new.   But you say that’s the reason why we have greeters in the parking lots and at the doors for, to welcome the visitors.  Come on who are we fooling that doesn’t really make someone feel like your church is a church they could feel a part of.  Everyone expects to see a greeter at the door, they say hi and shake your hand, but that doesn’t make you feel like you belong. 

No the great commission states that we go to where the people are at, in your towns and communities.  I know that’s a bit weird for most Christians, to be with or hang with sinners, but think about it we have the Holy Spirit with us to empower us for such a task and yet we still get nervous.  So you know a non-believer has got to be scared to walk up in a church building.  I believe that is why many churches are dieing.  We can’t understand why in the world people are not attracted to our theatrical performances and our grand light show.  Our churches our intimidating to many first time visitors no matter how people friendly we may think our church is. 

That is why we have to go to them.  Missional is a word that has been around for a while and within the past few years has caught favor with many Christ followers.  To be missional means we must see ourselves as a missionary wherever we are currently at.  It doesn’t have to be overseas; you are a missionary right in your hometown.  It is realizing that the lost are not going to come to us, but rather we have to go to the lost. 

Most of the churches that are growing in America today have a missional mindset.  These churches are biblically sound and don’t mind getting out there in the culture.  They are the types of churches that don’t see today’s culture as something to run from, but rather they engage today’s culture – wanting to put Christ in the center of today’s culture as much as possible.  The reason so many churches are falling at this is that they see culture and church on opposite ends of the spectrum that these two worlds are polarizing to each other. That is simply not true.  Take a look all through out the New Testament and where do you find Jesus? Not in the synagogues, but in the towns and villages with the people.  Jesus engaged his culture.  He went to the people.  So the question that has to be asked is are we going to the people or do we expect the people to come to us?   

Many churches see this word missional as offensive, because they have seen what they have done in the past work, but what they fail to realize is what worked ten or twenty years ago will not work for today’s culture.  Many have allowed the traditions of the church to blind them in their thinking that there is only one way to do church and that is the way they are currently doing it.  Why is it that we allow change in just about every area in our life, but the church?  Twenty years ago, hardly anybody had a cell phone, now everyone has got them even grandma’s.  The way we communicate has changed and we adapted.  So why can’t the church adapt the times as well, as long as we don’t change the content of scripture.  Does it really matter how we deliver it? 

As I said early being missional is not new, Jesus was missional.  I think what scares most people is the fact that we have to change the whole way we have been approaching church for most of our lives.  It is getting out of our comfort zones and it’s exploring unknown territory.  Being the creatures of habit that we are we don’t like this.  Being missional makes us rely more on the Holy Spirit and it forces us to form new relationships, something many of us have forgotten how to do. 

Also being missional is a lifestyle change, because you are trying to look at the world through the eyes of Christ.  Missional living is making your life about establishing relationships that are meaningful, always looking for new ways to engage culture so that you might have a opportunity to share Christ with someone.  Living a missional lifestyle is about being part of a community that cares for the needs of others before your own.  This lifestyle is very contrary to the world’s lifestyle; because of this very few will take this style of living.  When you live the missional lifestyle people begin to look at you differently and you realize what it is like to truly be just a strange of this world only passing through for a short time. 

Starting to live like this myself, I see things differently now.  , because I have realized there is much more to life than what just makes me happy.  With each day that passes, I feel like it is lost forever, that I will never get that day back to make a difference in someone else’s life.  Making a difference for Christ!  I feel like God has given me a new zeal for life like my life now has a purpose and that for me is very fulfilling!

I’ve got God all figured out

I have been involved or been to a lot of different churches in my life.  I guess you could say I’ve been around the block as far as seeing how different churches operate and the one thing they all have in common is they think they are right in their view of God.  I’ve been a Baptist as a young boy and teen, I went to a Church of Christ college for two years, preached at Church of England church for a summer, spoke at a Presbyterian Church, and I now belong to the Church of God domination.  And you know what each one of them will promise you that they have the inside track with God and that their views and beliefs are correct.  All these different views on God, this “religion” is enough to make one an agnostic. 

 

Then you have these fanatics about their domination that will argue with you that what you believe is wrong and some are so bold as to say that you are going to hell, because you do not believe the way they do.  I guess if you have a room full of fanatics each of a different domination, they will all damn themselves to hell. 

 

But what is really scary to me is the average person who on some level actually believes, that God is who they think He is.  Meaning they have Him all figured out, mapped out, dissected and neatly put into their little box.  I can’t help to wonder if God actually created us in his image or if we created God in our image.  For instance, I know a very conservative guy who is very opinionated, who at the drop of a hat, will tell you his beliefs on God and why God agrees with his view on political ideas and why his political ideas are right.  While he is ranting and raving I am think about the third world countries I’ve been to and was feeling like this guy with his opinions was presenting a kind of Jesus who would not even exist outside of America.  This guy’s Jesus was just an invention of his imagination, someone who just justified his potions and concerns.   Listening to these types of people rant is tiring to me.  People like that should have their own little island to live on.

 

The truth is God cannot fit in a nice little box that we or a domination makes for him, He is just too big for that.  So why do we try so hard to force Him in there?  God just can’t be totally figured out, that’s why He is God and we are not.  Once I believe I know all there is to know about God, I read something in the Bible or hear a speaker talking about God – that messes up some of what I believe God to be.  I believe this to be a good thing, because it makes me want to all the more seek God out for myself to learn more about Him and what He has in store for my life.  Not having all the answers is a good thing.  It makes us question our beliefs and it should challenge us to wrestle within ourselves why we believe what we believe.  So I guess we will all have to wait until we get to heaven to figure out God, I doubt even then we will have all the answers about who God is.