As a pastor of a small church in a growing town, I am fully aware that the church seems to be reaching fewer and fewer people as time goes on. Most “growth” is transfer growth… These are folks who get sick of one church and come to ours or visa versa. Real growth is when people who don’t believe are converted and brought into the fold… This is rare and getting rarer.
This post is influenced by 2 things that have happened to me in the last 12 hours.
First, I was talking to one of my students and encouraging her to continually live boldly in front of her friends. I would say “just live Jesus in front of them” and she would reply, “I do, I invite them to church but they won’t come.” That same miscommunication went on for a while. I don’t think she ever got the difference between telling her friends about Jesus or inviting people to come meet other Christians and living like Jesus in front of her friends. It’s an over-used cliche` amongst post-modern Christians, but does bear some truth to quote Augustine “Preach the Gospel wherever you go, and sometimes use words.” In her case, her non-Christian friends need to see the benefits to knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord before they are willing to hear about him.
Second, in reading Church without Walls the author makes the simple observation that we don’t know our neighbors. How true. We wonder why the church is so irrelevant in society and yet we withdraw ourselves from society. (Some would say we do this because we think we are better than others, others would say it is because we are afraid of “the world.” I think there is truth in both extremes but think we do this accidentally because we as churches are self-absorbed.)
These two truths are convicting to me. The reality is that I don’t know my neighbors… Or more to the point, I know them enough to avoid them. I know that they are unstable, they are dependent on alcohol and drugs, they are unskilled parents, they shack up, they party and wake up my kids, on and on and on. They exhibit such repulsive behavior that you would think that a loving and well intentioned Christian couple would look beyond the surface and see neighbors who desperately need Jesus. We see it, but we ignore it. We don’t want to get messy.
What a terrible failure I am! Dear God, help me to change. Help me to leave Jesus before my neighbors so I can be a part of a revival of hearts, souls, and mercy in Romeo.
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