I remember when I was in elementary we could play games for prizes. One of my favorite was “Where is Waldo” the other “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego”. I was thinking of something the other day. Where in the world is grace today? Why is that the seeker sensitive and emerging guys are busy pulling in all of the vilest of characters? Why is it that most of the churches I go to, the people who join are the most polished of individuals. Why aren’t we bringing in the drug dealer, the drug addict, the prostitute that turned a trick less than 3 hours ago, the woman with 5 baby daddies, the alcoholic that if he burbs you will get drunk, the dude fresh out of prison or on his way in, the homeless, the heroine addict with no areas left on his body to shoot up, that person who smells really, really bad?
Why are their no broken people (socially economically speaking) filling our churches. We say “oh the church is a hospital” it looks more like the Country Club. Where is the promiscuous little girl (the one we I shook our my head at because her shorts were just as long as her underwear), where is the thugged out young man (you know the one we said “he needs to pull his pants up”). Where are those people who threaten our way of life?
I tell you what they aren’t as hard to find as Waldo or Carmen. The problem is we ain’t looking for them. It isn’t that they aren’t available. They know and so do we, that we don’t want to interrupting our polished service. Heck they can’t understand those “deep” theological expository sermons anyway right? The church isn’t for them anyway right?
It is funny that I see a Jesus that heals throughout the Gospels. Okay, let me start over. If you don’t want to be exposed, please stay away from the Gospels. Okay I am back. Our churches don’t smell because we avoid smelly people. We don’t feel uncomfortable because uncomfortable people aren’t welcomed in our church, small groups or our lives. We would rather not have these people interrupt our church services. Never know who we might run off.
The reason I know this is true is because I have never heard a sermon on actively and aggressively bringing the most uncomfortable people into the church. We like growing the church but I don’t think we want it to grow with people who will take! Let me say that again. We want to grow but not at a cannibalizing rate. Okay let me say it this way. We don’t want to bring needy people in because that may interrupt the building fund campaign! Why because they have needs and now instead of bringing people in that will increase our reserves, we would be bringing people that may dwindle it quicker than the Dow dropped last month. The value of our religious stock will drop if we take on “unsecured debt”. Our religious portfolio may just be dwindled in the kingdom of man. That is why we have no problem ministering to marginalized people in Africa. Why? Because they won’t come back to our churches. They won’t be a pest to us. A nuisance so to say. That is why there are no broken, poverty stricken, drug addicts (not recovered but current addicts) in our churches. Why? Because we don’t want them there and Jesus knows it. He knows that we are frauds and really want no part in the lives of those individuals.
You know in 3 Corinthians 3:5 “God helps those who help themselves” and in Thessalonians it says “if a man don’t work he don’t eat”. Right? In the Gospel of Matthias it says “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him how to fish he eats for life”. What if there ain’t no fish in the river he stays by. What if he ain’t got arms? You see we don’t want to be bothered with hoochies, thugs, drug addicts, alcoholics and the like. We don’t mind throwing them a bone, or even going to share the Gospel with them. But what we don’t want is them to bother our lives, to interrupt God’s plan for us to bite into the American Pie!
We wonder why Jesus isn’t using us to make a difference in the world and why secular Bono can get more troops rallied to feed the poor than the millions of “Christians” that are in the United States. We wonder why America has gotten progressively worse. It is because we have built a barb wired fence, which is both electric with armed guards around our churches.
Okay you don’t believe me. I want you to tell your pastor to preach a sermon or to start an aggressive ministry campaign that will bring in the vilest of individuals. And when they come we will have this huge dinner for them and serve them for two weeks straight. All they need to do is show up. Tell him that we are going to walk past everyone who looks half descent and find the scariest people possible. See what he says.
Jesus is a joke to the world, because his body has forgotten its mission. Which is to reconcile the world to him. The reason we have all of these para-church ministries is because it is feeling the void of the Church. There were no para-church ministries in the scriptures. The church fed the poor, took care of the orphan and widow, invited those rejected by society in for a meal, took care of the handicapped (those who were treated severely in the Roman empire), they took in the lepers, the diseased, those who hospitals wouldn’t even accept, those without healthcare and welfare. The church did this because this was their mission!
But today we are more concerned about if your expository sermon has the right components to be a true expository sermon. If you handled that verb the right way, if you use lights and puppets in your church, if women are teaching or not, if the gifts of the Spirit are for today, if the atonement was brutal, what type of baptism is correct, if God is 100% knowing or if He gave a little of that up, if people are speaking a prayer language in their spare time, if someone is partnering with someone I disagree with theologically (I am so guilty here)!
If I sound frustrated I am. Why because our Master has bigger fish for us to fry. We are having major conferences on Calvinism or Arminianism! Are we serious? National Conferences? So we go on our cruises with our favorite theologians while the world goes to hell in a hand basket! And we clear our conscience by ensuring we are paying our tithes, and making sure we spend at least 1 hour per day in devotion time. Oh yeah, can’t forget got to memorize those scriptures.
What type of Grace am I talking about. The Grace that tells a hurting world that we know a Savior who has died on the cross for you just like you are and we take you with no conditions. We place no conditions on you that the Savior of the world didn’t. Jesus takes drug addicts, homosexuals, rapists, child molesters, Muslims, Atheists, fornicators, women with 5 baby daddys, thugs with two felonies under their belts, promiscuous little girls, sorry fathers, no good mothers, alcoholics, liars, thieves, porn stars, strippers, con-men, and those in false religions just as they are. His death purchases a spot for them all in eternity, the problem is his Church doesn’t. How do I know, because we have no aggressive campaigns to pursue them recklessly.
I close with this, Jesus didn’t take the long way around Samaria. He went straight through the middle to meet a woman at a well. A broken and promiscuous woman. A woman who seemed to enjoy the company of other women’s husbands. One who was probably going to fetch some water to freshen up for the one that she was currently entertaining. A woman who was well known around the way. She couldn’t walk by without being looked at funny without other women pulling their husbands in close. When her roof was leaking no women sent their husbands to help her. But God who stepped down in human flesh back in eternity planned to meet this woman on a sunny day by a well. His purpose was to bring her to Himself, so that He can show us the type of people He saves. His disciples thought He was mistaken or in error. But that day she conversed with the Savior not by chance but by divine appointment. He shared Himself with Her and in turn she immediately became an evangelist and ambassador of Grace. So impressed were the people that they said “let us see for ourselves”. Could it be that they said “if He talked with her, the type of woman she is, would He not also accept me”?
Church where in the world is grace?
Lionel,
Top blog! Have sent it on to several Aussie brethren.
You obviously haven’t read the evangelical best seller, “We Have Always Done it This WaY! It Is Biblical! Isn’t It?”
Hey Lionel,
This grace that you speak of is not comfortable or an easy road to walk. Probably the very reason we walk away. We want Jesus to clean them up first (inside and outside) make them like us and then they can join.
I labor in a mobile home park with my husband and Steve. We have been there for a little over one year. I remember recieving a phone call around 11:30P.M. on a Friday night from a woman whose husband had her perform sex acts with another man while he watched and later beat her and left her. I knocked on a door and a male yelled…”who the F*** is it?” Then he opened the door and let me pray for him and his live in girlfriend. I can recall going into a couples home that was full of smoke…to the point of taking my breath away. I have watched my husband stand between two men wanting to physically fight and calling them to be at peace with one another. We have shared the gospel with individuals who were drunk. I have heard my children say on cloudly, freezing cold days…we want to go to the mobile home park because people need to hear the gospel. Yet this grace that you speak of will force us to no longer be religious, and self righteous….we have to be humble and serve.
All that I am telling you is truly to bring Glory to Christ. I was “bred” to be the wife of a pastor. You know the kind that sits on the front row with the large hat, the bangin suit with coordinating heels and pursue. You know that first lady….that was me! From believers who don’t get it…I have been called the “First lady of the streets….anyway.
We have to see Christ as more valuable. Christ must be our Hope. We must understand that we were equally sinful in the sight of God. We rank sin therefore are unwilling to extend grace to others. If we were not gripped by drugs or whoredom then we have no compassion with those who are. Somehow I think we are too lazy to labor with the lost, or too outwardly clean to go through Samaria like Jesus.
It may seem intimidating at first but from my experience the drug addicts, homosexuals, rapists, child molesters, Muslims, Atheists, fornicators, women with 5 baby daddys, thugs with two felonies under their belts, promiscuous little girls, sorry fathers, no good mothers, alcoholics, liars, thieves, porn stars, strippers, con-men, and those in false religions are no different then YOU before God called you. Without Christ you look just like them and if your religious and self righteous you may look worse.
Lionel that was a great post along with the last three. I am encourage by what the Lord is doing in you. Just a note this road you walk will be lonely one be prepared!
This is a humbling post, very sobering. If you don’t mind, I will share these words with some people on my e-mail. Makes me think that sharing a tract is much easier than sharing your life. I am need right now because my car was stolen and the one’s who are offering to help me, the non-believers. My father-in-law (a man who hates religion) without question lent me his BMW, and other non-believers have continuously offered me rides to the train station. Only one believing family (local) has offered to help me, out of the numerous non-Christians that have extended their hand to me. Something is not right with that. So opening this post this morning really humbles me to extend the grace of Christ given to me, to others. Praise God
Karsten Miller
Lionel-
Another thought provoking post. I’m as tired as you are of the insular, safe, suburban, cookie-cutter Christianity.
Stacy and I have been unsuccessful in finding a simple church or home church setting that we feel comfortable with for a variety of reasons.
We are starting to drive 40 minutes to visit a downtown church called Ecclesia, Houston.
After their morning service, they make lunches and distribute them to the homeless in the area.
They do other types of outreaches as well and really seem to make a concerted effort to minister to the poor and those crippled by sin.
KM,
I think you really should share this with your community at Hope (not my post, but your disheartenment). The reason why is that it can easily become a sour patch in your heart brother. I think you can do it lovingly but it still should be done maybe even with the pastor privately. Especially if you have clearly made this need known.
Yeah I heard of them dudes, they fall a bit on the emerging side right? Candles and stuff like that. I know them through a friend who says they get the work of the Kingdom done bro! I hope you guys find a place where that is the key. We are going to have to compromise until we can all get together! :o)
Lionel;
I’ll do that. Actually the one who offered to help is from Hope but I have not made this need fully known to them. Thanks bro;
Karsten Miller
Brother Lionel, Great thought provoking post! May the Lord have mercy on us. Faith , Hope and Love abound. But the greatest is Love. Keep up the excellent posts. Seeker of truth
The amazing thing that I have seen is that God’s economy doesn’t work like ours. We have churches that are struggling. How can they expend resources they don’t have to minister to people in need? I’ve seen churches cut important ministries that were underfunded to begin with because they didn’t have the funds. Most churches I know typically operate in the red with regard to their budget because people don’t give what they pledged to give. There’s a Christian homeless shelter already in town, but we do reach out to people in many different ways. We distribute gifts door to door in poor neighborhoods. We have a motorcycle ministry that reaches out to bikers across town. We have events at the church where we provide free meals to people in the community. God always seems to meet our budget and we are able to fund all kinds of international missions and missionaries regularly. So where do the funds come from for all this? God provides all we need to accomplish His purposes. We don’t even have a pledge system, but our board of deacons develops a budget every year on faith not knowing otherwise if the money will be there. My prayer is that God will receive all the glory and the gospel we proclaim will have the weight of our ministry to back it up.
Jim P,
Praise God brother. Your church seems to be one of few but I do believe the work of ministry is being done.
My observation is that many churches cannot make their “budget” so to speak, simply because it is their budget and not the Lord’s.
Many men who like to go by the title pastor are not equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry but rather operate as some type of unbiblical public speaker and fund raiser who is totally removed from the lives of “his” congregation.
I am hopeful that we may be seeing the end of the personal empire building era here in America with so called pastors who have no clue what it means to equip the saints for the work of the ministry but really seem to not even understand what the work of the ministry entails.
When you strip giving down to its intended purpose and cease wasteful and unbiblical spending on building funds, mortgage payments and staff salaries, there is plenty of money for a local gathering to help the poor and minister to those trapped in and enslaved to sin.
I am also hopeful that this economic downturn will clarify our priorities and if a churches wasteful spending and presumptuous budgets cause them to lose their buildings and they have to close the doors, I say praise the Lord! The saints will re-gather and restructure and God’s Kingdom will not be harmed or lose ground in anyway.
In fact, I think the best thing that can happen at a lot of churches is that they go broke and have to shut the doors.