tmazon (dot) com

I don’t even know where to begin. There is a lot going on in my head right now. Lately I have been really thinking through what it means to be a Christian in today’s world. As I look at the average American church and the culture of today, I am growing more and more dissatisfied. I recently began building a youth ministry in the heart of a city that is 50% college age and younger. But we aren’t attracting anyone from that age group to our church. Being in this community has caused me to ask some really hard questions about what I think youth ministry and ministry in general is and should be.

We live in a place where the church is no longer the central hub of society. If anything, the church is an archaic reminder of what used to be. People aren’t flocking to the church anymore. Yet, Jesus is still very much in our culture. The other day, I was at the grocery store in my college town community and saw a college age guy with one of those “Jesus is my homeboy” t-shirts. At Urban Outfitters, you can buy Jesus t-shirts and other merchandise like a Jesus bobblehead, a Jesus action figure, a Grow-Your-Own-Jesus to name a few.

If you ask people what they think of Jesus, the answer is usually pretty positive. Unsaved people generally like Him. They generally think of Jesus with great respect and admiration. You might hear things like he was a great prophet. He helped the poor and widows. He was a great philosopher. He genuinely cared for people.

But ask them about the church, and you get a very different response. Meanwhile, church people are oblivious to this because they are generally satisfied living in a Christian subculture bubble. The mindset of most church people (at least from what I see) is that they just want the world to conform to the ways of the church. We expect the world to just “get a clue” and come back to God and the church. This attitude comes across in how we treat unsaved people when we meet them. We don’t tip well those who serve us, we grumble and complain at Starbucks when our coffee isn’t made right, we sit and bash the service that we just attended while eating at a public restaurant. Then we want people to come to church and become just like us!

I love the idea of a “missional church” as I read about in They Like Jesus But Not The Church by Dan Kimball. I’m sure I can find a more in depth description of a missional church elsewhere, but the gist of it is the leadership and people of the church function as local missionaries in their community. Instead of separating our church life and “other” life, they become one and the same. The reality of the matter is that we are no longer living in a Christian culture. But people of the church somehow have missed this fact, and are waiting for the the “lost” to figure life out and come to God. Being a missional church and even a missional Christian is much like the way a missionary enters a different culture to learn the culture first. They spend time learning the values system, the spiritual views, customs and traditions, etc. Then they take that information and weave the message of the gospel into it AFTER they have spent considerable time building solid relationships with the people of the culture. In this way, they gain the trust of the people, and feel as though they are genuinely cared for by the church. The culture HAS to be entered! We must enter their world if we want any chance to win them!

Then when we do outreaches, we often treat people like a proselytizing project rather than a human being. We immediately attack them with our witnessing bullets, having an answer to just about any reply. When was the last time we sat back and just listened to unsaved people? When was the last time we really built a solid relationship with people that are lost? There has to be a dramatic shift in the eyes of the church if we are going to actually fulfill Christ’s commission to us. He didn’t say, “Make the world come to you to make them disciples.” But rather, “Go…”

Jesus never told us to avoid the world. But rather to be lights to the world. John 17:15 quotes a prayer of Jesus to the Father regarding the saints, saying, “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.” It’s really easy for us to lose sight of our mission and call when we are around “church” people all of the time. God did not call us to live in a Christian “bubble” so that we could be safe from the world.

In a blog about discipleship, another close friend writes,

Jesus knew that to effectively train up people to do God’s work, there needed to be bonding, relationship building and constant investment. Jesus knew that His disciples would respond to his lessons more positively if there had been some “hang out” time the same week.

It’s all about getting into the ditches where people are and building a relationship with them. I remember a leadership quote from long ago, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Do unsaved people that we know (that I know) have a tremendous feeling that we (even I) care about them?

I was discussing this with a very good friend and mentor in ministry, and she had this to say to me:

Last week I was the “pastor on call” (which means any walk in or call ins come to me). A lady from our church called, and long story short, she drove by a young pregnant girl standing on the street about a mile from our church with a sign that she was homeless. So this lady from our church is asking me to go and help her! I was absolutely speechless. This lady drives by, has a heart for a pan handler, and calls the church asking if a pastor will go and help her. Man, I wanted to just REAM her. Instead, I tried to discreetly point out that maybe God had put her on her heart for a reason. She says, “What are trying to say? That I should turn around and help her in the middle of my busy day on my way to an appointment?” Can you believe it Tony? Anyway, she ends up going to talk to the girl herself and then she calls me after. I am thinking, “Well good, at least she went and did it herself.” Oh no, she is calling to tell me that she had to get lunch anyway, so she got some lunch and then stopped to talk to the girl. NOT to buy her lunch, but to tell her that one of the pastors from her church would be coming by shortly to help her. I just about blew a gasket. To me, that was everything wrong with church people today. It is the church’s job to fix the world.

Dear God, help us! We need to have Your heart again for people!