Get out there

In the concluding chapter of The Jesus of Suburbia, Mike Erre writes:

The most common (and powerful) objections to faith are no longer intellectual, per se, but rather are moral in nature. In other words, the predominant questions culture was asking fifty years ago were intellectual questions: Has evolution disproved creation? Does God exist? Can miracles happen? What are the proofs for the resurrection of Christ?

Erre points out that, in response, the Christian community responded by focusing on answering these questions through apologetics. Today, however, the main consumers of apologetic books and studies are those within the church who are seeking to strengthen their faith. It's not the outsiders and the outsiders aren't even asking these questions anymore. I know that I have read (and am reading) lots of apologetics. These are all great for enhancing my understanding of Jesus but, in thinking about my earlier post about how we tend to box Jesus into the little bit that we udnerstand, I think that my focus in this area has led to me doing just that: boxing Him in because of all I THINK I understand.

Erre continues:

Today's challenges to followers of Jesus come in an increasingly moral form. Why can't two gay men who love each other marry? What is wrong with experimenting on stem cells harvested through aborted fetuses? How can Christians claim that their religion is the only correct one and that everyone else is damned to hell? In all of these debates, the Christian position is typically portrayed as the least moral position!

I have to step out here and admit that I have fallen victim to this exact thought process. Isn't it more loving and just to be tolerant of these things? All of those thorny issues aside, Erre points out that what is missing today is a good, solid demonstration by Christians of the way Jesus ministered to people: by serving and loving people.

This past Sunday, the district superintendent preached a particularly biting sermon on issues such as these. He pointed out that there are churches that spend a lot of time and energy on a one week mission trip to a third world country while each and every week those same church members drive past people in need on their way to church. I think this is the point being made. Someone once said (I believe it was Phillip Yancey) that the people that the church will travel halfway around the world to help wouldn't be welcome through the front door of the church if they showed up there.

In short, churches have become very inward focused. Jesus told us to go out into the world and preach the good news.

The world is out there...not already in the church building.