My friend Amanda commented on my last post entitled “Compel Them” with a very good question…how? How do you compel them to come to the Master’s table?
I hope some others will respond to this as well, but here are my thoughts on the matter. I’m going to sum it up in the three R’s: relate, reveal, and restore. And for the sake of those of you who don’t have time to read an epistle, I’m going to do this in three parts.
Relate
The church is failing deeply in this area. Behind our “shiny plastic steeples” we hide ourselves away in cocoons of self-righteousness. The ‘world’ (pronounced with the proper inflection of impending doom) has no ability -nor desire, and can you blame them? – to relate to us and our facade of unreachability. What good is it to make the occasional foray into the wastelands of sin-saturated reality when our air of supperiority or, at best, pity keeps us utterly untouched by the grit of their suffering?
David had a calvinist friend explain evangelism this way: “We are searching for brothers and sisters that we know are out there, we just haven’t met them yet.” The problem is, those brothers and sisters are seldom looking for us in return. (This analogy evokes recently viewed episodes of The Locator…but I digress). We must relate to the unsaved. I think about churches who hold rallies for motorcycle riders, who go out into low income housing projects and pick up trash, fix screen doors, and plant flowers. On a personal level, I think about people who take groceries to families in need or give selflessly so that underprivledged kids can go to summer camp. To reach them we must go to where they are, not just physically but emotionally, and socially. We go to the place of their need…the place of their interest. We become relatable. It’s Jesus talking to the woman at the well about never being thirsty again. It’s all the parables He told. It’s when my husband does a few optical illusion type magic tricks when he witnesses to a group of people on the street. If we’re out to find our “missing family” we can’t be so unapproachable that they would never want to be a part of our “family” at all.
Part two – REVEAL – will follow shortly! Discussion is welcomed!
A Healing Place 