Purpose of church 3 - outreach (conclusion)

I know I have focused upon a lot of the negative side of how we the church have failed in outreach, rather than how we should proceed with evangelism. One of the reasons for that is there isn’t much to be said about how to proceed other than we need to approach it with love and humility as Christ did. Secondly, the churches error in this matter is so common and widespread that a serious light needs to be cast upon it. We need to be calling ourselves out on this one. In many ways, condemnation and criticism seems to be mankind's default setting. It was the teachers of the law and the Pharisees way of doing things in Jesus’ time, and we have been repeating that mistake consistently for the past two-thousand years. But here is the “good news.” The word gospel means good news, so it needs to put to the forefront, eventually. There is forgiveness for hypocrites who have tainted their Christian love with condemnation and criticism. They need only turn away from the hateful ways of the sinful flesh and turn towards the nurturing ways of the spirit. They need to face up to and confess their error; they need to repent in their heart. Then maybe God’s spirit would move us towards revival again.

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. We cannot force people to live righteous lives. Holiness that does not come from the heart is not genuine. The only way we can truly encourage people to choose Jesus’ teachings for themselves is to inspire them. We cannot do that if we are not living the life ourselves. (Genesis 39:2-4)

Do everything in love. -1 Corinthians 16:14 

‎"It is easy to know that 'there is a way somewhere,' and even perhaps to know that others aren't on it... But this knowledge is useless unless it helps one find the way. If it merely becomes a standard of judgment, a means of showing up others and judging them for having lost their way, it is no use to anyone." 

-Thomas Merton

Bullied Rose
"Why should it bloom, look what it has to open up to."

Purpose of church 3 - OUTREACH part 4

Maybe you’ve heard that 6 of the 10 commandments deal with how we relate to each other. Human interaction was certainly a mainstay in Jesus’ teaching as well. So obviously how we treat each other is important to God, so naturally we need to keep this in mind with our outreach efforts. Let’s do that by looking at Matthew 7:1-5, it’s not a passage typically associated with outreach, but maybe that’s why we have failed in it. 

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. NIV

Verse 1 is often given credit for being the most quoted in all the Bible. That fact in itself is a testament to just how hateful this world really is. People are using it to defend against the barrage of criticism we experience every day. Yet, most completely overlook verses 3-4 where we are instructed to turn that discerning eye upon ourselves. Let’s face it, change cannot happen without willingness. As much as we wish we could, we just can’t truly make people feel the way we want. The best we can accomplish with condemnation is the insincere surface obedience of forced submission. Yet it’s quite easy to produce just the opposite result when we fuel the spirit of rebellion by correcting without love. It’s no wonder Christ encourages us to focus on our own righteousness before others in this passage. Our own errors are precisely the faults we have the most power to change. But have we embraced or even noticed that detail at all? Yet, if we really lived that way and dealt with our own sin as intended. Our eye would be clear enough to realize that to correct in pride and anger is nothing more than correcting sin with sin, which is ineffective for obvious reasons.  Which is just what verse 5 revels to us. Yet, when we do correct in our arrogant pride what happens? Well Christ warns us of that in verse 6. If you are ambitious enough to look that up for yourself you may realize that the church is experiencing that now more than ever. The nonbelievers are very much trampling all over the truth and turning on believers via the media because of our unloving and self-righteous attitudes. 

Let me close by reiterating this thought. Righteousness is something we should never take pride in. Not just because it invalidates our righteousness. (Psalm 31:21) For in the end righteousness can only be achieved with God’s help, strength, and spirit. Scripture confirms this in many ways. Including the subsequent verses following our central passage (verses 7-12) Anyone who has truly repented and dealt with their sin by the strength of the spirit would have humility to realize this is something we need to be thankful to God for, not seeking credit for ourselves. We should be praising our savior for it, not cursing people. If we truly took this passage to heart we would be helping people in their walk toward holiness, not condemning them for their failure. 

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over your plank

Purpose of church 3 - OUTREACH part 3

“We must stand up for the truth!” A phrase heard uttered by many believers today. A sentiment we follow in an effort to do evangelism. Granted we must stand up for the truth, as long as we are actually standing up for the truth in the process. What do I mean? Take for example, those who crucified Christ. In their mind, they were standing up for the truth. They were protecting their beliefs and traditions to do so. Yet they broke the law of Moses that they held sacred in order to do so. Current believers do not do much better when we correct in pride rather than humility. We walk over all that we hold sacred when we correct without love. Ultimately whenever a believer chooses to correct with impatience, unkindness, boasting, rudeness, or any other action that’s the reverse of the loving actions portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; The opposition is quick to point out “this is how they love, they claim to be about love, but what they do in not loving at all, not even by their own standards.” Which puts the opposition in a good position to redefine love in their own self-serving image. A position we have put them in, and they have taken full advantage of. All because of sinful impatient non empathetic prideful believers who thinks righteousness can be achieved by shame. 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - John 13:34-35

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that dayyou will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” - John 14:15-21

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. - John 15:9-17

It seems that Jesus could not stress this point enough, yet still we fail at it.

Non Practicing 

Purpose of church 3 - OUTREACH part 2

In the end when it comes to outreach all one can really do is inspire. The best way to do that is with the lives we live everyday. While you can try to force someone to act as you believe they should, you might even convince the government to back you up, but all you are really doing is whitewashing someone else’s tomb. If it’s pointless to do that to yourself, how much more pointless is it to do that to someone who hasn’t even chosen that for themselves. (Matthew 23:27-28) You haven’t really changed people where it counts, that place being the heart. Yet, the closest thing a lot of so-called church people get to outreach is condemnation. There are very few things that are less inspirational than condemnation and criticism. Ask yourself honestly, do you respect those who treat you critically? Do you go out of your way to please such unpleasant people? Or do you go out of your way to defy them? So why do we expect such methods to produce any other results when we apply them to others? I’ll tell you, it’s the sinful nature of the flesh. The flesh always chooses the phony quick fix. Just look at the ways of sinful flesh nature listed in Galatians 5:19-21 and take note of just how many can correspond with critical condemnation. Then ask yourself, why do we deceive ourselves into thinking this is righteousness.  

The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. - Genesis 39:2-4

Whitewashing someone else's tomb

Purpose of church 3 - outreach

Outreach is essentially education turned outward rather than inward, not that we treat it the same as internal education.

The church as a whole has been making a grand push towards outreach these days. Sadly, it’s often only out of necessity, not because it’s the right thing to do though. They often end up trying to use people to build the church rather than use the church to build people when it’s merely about numbers. Such an attitude comes from self focus rather than love. Yet they wonder why God is not blessing their efforts. 

What’s even more disturbing is the response our church leaders are getting to outreach, regardless the motivation. Sure you can do a sermon on evangelism, you can ask them to write a check in support of missionaries, you can even ask them to memorize the great commission, and it’s all good. However, if you ask people to get directly involved, many start throwing a fit. Sure, they want to see growing numbers, but they don’t want to have to make any kind of sacrifice for it. Despite the fact, that true worship involves sacrifice. It’s quite revealing as to where peoples hearts are at. It reveals a lack of spiritual maturity as well as a lack of empathy. 

Apparently, the church has failed somewhere along the line to create such a heartless generation of believers. Until the hearts of the people who make up the church can be rebuilt to the point where there is room enough for the lost, any efforts to do outreach are hampered greatly. If the church wants to grow numerically, then its present members need to grow up in the spirit. 

Your heart's not in it

Living Education

One last thing about our second purpose of church, education. People today tend to view belief, knowledge, and action as three separate and distinct things. So when we read verses like John 6:29  Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” It may seem like knowledge and action are irrelevant. But what if I told you that the audience that initially received this message didn’t see it that way. The Hebrew point of view saw belief, knowledge, and action as integrated. If you truly belied, you showed it by expanding your knowledge of it. If you truly believed you acted upon said knowledge. 

In recent days, the phrase “Christian atheist” has entered our culture. The idea being that there are people who claim to believe in God yet do not live as if he or his commands matter in everyday life. I’m sure this idea of fragmenting knowledge from belief from action is at the root of it. 

Now we live in an age where people get into such heated debates over definitions; as if believing the right definition is enough. Take for example, the debate over predestination. Do we live any more or less righteously either way? I think not, so why do we let the issue lead us into unrighteous behavior? We do just that when we try to convince people otherwise with impatience, unkindness, rudeness, or boasting, we just end up forsaking our Lord’s command on love; all because our belief, knowledge, and action are not integrated.

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. -Titus 3:9

 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. -James 3:9-10

faith on paper

Worship vs Education

I opened this section with the fact that the ancient Hebrews has a separate word for houses of worship from houses of learning. (Temple VS Synagogue) As well as the question weather it’s right to combine said practices into a single convenient service as we do now. It’s not a simple thing to answer, but if you’ve been paying attention; thus far, you will realize that music is a crossover element in both concepts. As well as there was a huge change in the concept of the temple and ultimately worship as a result under the new covenant.  Let us also look at 1 Corinthians 14 which offers some insights to how the first generation church was conducted.

26 My friends, when you meet to worship, you must do everything for the good of everyone there. That’s how it should be when someone sings or teaches or tells what God has said or speaks an unknown language or explains what the language means. 27 No more than two or three of you should speak unknown languages during the meeting. You must take turns, and someone should always be there to explain what you mean. 28 If no one can explain, you must keep silent in church and speak only to yourself and to God.29 Two or three persons may prophesy, and everyone else must listen carefully. 30 If someone sitting there receives a message from God, the speaker must stop and let the other person speak. 31 Let only one person speak at a time, then all of you will learn something and be encouraged. 32 A prophet should be willing to stop and let someone else speak. 33 God wants everything to be done peacefully and in order. (CEV)

It would  seem that the first generation church was the genesis of the practice of merging the concepts. So it would not seem that scripture does not condemn the practice. However, this passage also reveals church practices that are far removed from the church of today. These verses paint a picture of a church that was far more interactive. It all didn’t center around the efforts of but a single teacher, and everyone else merely a consumer. A wide assortment of people was involved. Many helped in bearing an abundant harvest of spiritual fruit, and they were eager to do so. So their Christian education was in no way diminished by such a merger, they were truly living the body of Christ concept. Can we still make such a claim?

     Let me also share this. Over a century and a half-ago during the abolitionist era, when slavery was the big social issue. Many people in the church felt that the governments approval of such a horrific crime against humanity was a sign of the end. A perception that was compounded by a fact that many churches were not taking a stand on the issue so as not to offend their members that were getting rich off slavery; in their mind this was the church of Laodicea come to pass. When the civil war officially broke out the abolitionist side of the church was so utterly convinced that the end was near that a grand campaign to save as many people as possible was implemented. They didn’t worry about a deep rooted knowledge and faith. They just tried to give them enough to keep them out of hell.

     This false perception is probably but one of many events that has lead to the decline of education in the church; and the church as a whole has just declined with it. No we don’t need to separate education from worship, but we probably need to take both concepts far more seriously in our lives, by getting back to the level of dedication that the first generation church had. The Sabbath was an all day observance in Biblical times. Now it’s often no more than an hour and a half. If we tithed our time and only counted waking hours, even that would be 11 hours and 12 minutes.
       As scripture reveals in many places; man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We feed our physical bodies every day, even multiple times a day if we have the means. However, many of us starve our spirit by only feeding it when convenient. For many see the church as merely a place to consume spiritual fruit, not bear it as Jesus called us to; as the first generation church did. (John 15:8) When a church is filled with nothing but consumers with very few producers, it’s no wonder the crop is so small.

Veiled glory 2 Corinthians 3:7-18