To Inspire a Dream...

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Did you miss me?

So, nearly 3 months without a post? What's up with that? I guess I've just been feeling uninspired. But that's going to change, I think. I just got back from Seattle where I interviewed with a grad school. I'm pumped about moving there, I can't wait. Until then, I hope to post a little more often, so stay tuned.

Below you'll find a reply I put on a friend's blog. Enjoy and please leave your thoughts.
___________________________________________________________________

You said: "With all that said, how do we incorporate this type of evangelism into our churches?"

I say let's scrap the current church model we have. Stop meeting every Sunday, maybe meet only one Sunday a month for a corporate worship service. The other Sundays (and Mondays, Tuesdays, etc.) should be spent getting in community and building relationships with others. Pastors should not be paid, but should hold secular jobs where they have interactions with non-Christians (not to convert them, but to understand them and love them as Christ did while he was on Earth.) Christians need to lessen their devotion to their specific church (little "c") and raise their devotion to being the Church (big "C"), which means they need to love God and love others. Instead of putting so much emphasis on the church service (or worship experience, corporate gathering, or whatever one likes to call it,) put emphasis on believers engaging non-believers with the intent not to convert them put to serve them and show them Christ's love the best way we can. But that's too tough for most of us...

You said: "Let's go beyond that. How do we get other believers to buy into this form of sharing Christ?"

Stop babying them and teaching them that their greatest devotion in life should be to their church. Instead of teaching them that they should love their church with their heart, soul, mind, and strength teach them to start loving God that way. Instead of asking someone how many times they've been to church in the past month, ask them how many people's worlds they've entered into. Instead of chastizing someone for missing a church service, applaud them for loving their neighbor, serving the single mother down the street, or working at a homeless mission. Too many churches today would rather raise a stink about a member missing a service (or God forbid a tithe) and not give a flying crap that that person was home taking care of a dying family member, serving them until their dying breath or that they took their tithe and bought groceries for a needing family. Requiring believers to wipe noses, wipe butts, feed, house, and give money to those who need it is how we're going to change this world...not by going to another church service about how we can fix our marriages or raise our kids better.
I don't mean to ruffle cages or rattle feathers, but something has to change with our current system.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home