A lot of churches are attempting to find ways to show their members that the Christian faith is not about joining a church and then attending services until a. you die or b. Jesus returns.
There are a lot of people who will never step foot into a church to hear the Gospel, so we have to be OUT THERE taking it to them. Let’s face it, biblically speaking, worship is for believers; for those who already get it, who believe in God, who follow Him, who want to worship Him. So, if we are going to reach the world we have to get out there and share our faith so that they will WANT to follow Him (and, incidentally, will want to come gather with other believers to worship God).
This, in a nutshell, is what I think is wrong with a lot of what the church is doing today: and this is true from the most die-hard traditional church to the most emergent, relevant church. Instead of going out and telling the lost about Jesus we are trying to lure them to our building for a service. Some try to do this with traditional music and BBQ dinners, others do it with kick-butt worship services that rival a Van Halen concert (and often with the same songs) and efforts to appeal to the pop culture of the day. This isn’t an issue of what is the best methodology to attract the lost but is an issue of what we are attracting them to. Instead of attracting them to our building and our worship service and our church organization (regardless of what type of church organization you are), we should be attracting them to Jesus by sharing the Gospel of grace.
And that means taking it to the streets. Getting out of the building, away from the programs, away from the worship services/pop culture concerts, and out where the lost people are. I don’t care what style your worship is, your type of sermon, the color of your minister’s hair (or lack thereof) or what you wear; just lead them to Jesus, nothing else, for in the end nothing else will matter. We will not be judged on how many worship services we attended or whether we were members of a church; we will be judged on whether or not we have been saved by grace through faith.
The only caveat I would have is that nowadays it seems that when a church “takes it to the street” they are not talking about evangelism but about service projects. Instead of telling people about how great Jesus is, we are showing them what nice folks we Christians are. Well, that’s better than nothing, but I would love to see a church get as fired up about handing out the Gospel as we are about handing out water, about washing away sins as we are at washing cars, about picking people out of the gutter as we are at picking up trash. Yes, I know, doing a good deed can open a door to sharing the Gospel, so that’s great if the Gospel is shared in this way (but we have to be ready to take that opportunity to share the Gospel while doing these service projects).
How do we do that? How do we go about getting our folks excited about sharing their faith with actual words, since faith comes by hearing the Word of God, not from getting a bottle of water from a nice guy with a church’s name on his shirt? I wish I knew, but I think it comes from the church making true disciples, which comes from understanding what the Gospel is, which comes from teaching the Gospel, etc.
Let’s take it to the streets. The Apostles didn’t leave Pentecost and build a building and play the latest Jewish and Roman songs to get people in the door, they went out into the world sharing the Gospel.
Well . . . I’ve finally lived long enough to see some things repeat themselves, including the width of ties and the length of hemlines.
Your words are so relevant; just as meaninful as they were in the early 70’s when Dr. D. James Kennedy came out with his “Evangelism Explosion” methodology. Of course, groups like the Navigators had been doing it for at least two decades and Campus Crusade for Christ was the “new kid on the block”. Each of these groups/programs sent people out into the world to share Christ one on one.
The church had just gone through the remarkable growth and building programs of the 50’s and was firmly committed and entrenched in institutionalism. Their mantra? “If you can stumble across the threshold of the church, we’ll have ya.” The church building was the magnet for the masses. Upward social mobility was the church’s bait. The old ships of Zion were growing and building architectual edifices to their glory.
That started to change in the 60’s. The building and the edifice’s place in the “community” were not enough to push back the onslaught of the youth rebellion against the status quo.
Out of this came the Calvary Chapel movement, as one example. Young adults reaching young adults with the gospel, one-on-one. The Jesus Movement was in full bloom. As mentioned before, the Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ and Evangelism Explosion (adapted and taught in many of our churches) sent people into their own neighborhoods and workplaces to share Christ one-on-one.
It was in 1973, leading up to the Billy Graham Crusade in Phoenix, that I learned to share the gospel one-on-one. It was a life-changing experience for me.
So . . . amigo, you once again walk in the footsteps of giants. You know that God has no grandchildren. Excellent thoughts.
As, always, give my regards to the Urchin and the Redhead.
Norm
[…] My friend Norm, who is a little older than I am, gave me a little historical perspective in his comment to my post “Taking It To the Streets”. I was talking about the need for us Christians […]