Come to Church or Go to Hell??????????

Come to Church or Go to Hell?

Catchy title huh? Did it get your attention?

When you read the title what was the first thought that came to your mind? Oh no, not another one of those preachy emails. At this point, I welcome any kind of response; passion, anger, love, motivation, sarcasm, rebuttal, criticism, questions, answers, solutions, or something!

If you stop and think about it, we work really hard to get people to come to church, instead of simply taking Jesus where they are. I know our intentions are good. None of us desires that anyone experiences the eternal reality of hell. Most of our efforts, resources, and programming are aimed at trying to get those who are lost to come hear our message of hope. I am not saying we need to abandon this. I am saying we have got to get beyond this being the primary means to reach people. I am not saying we need to abandon corporate gatherings either because I believe they are equally important and significant. I am saying we should take the transforming presence of Christ beyond the walls to the marketplace and our neighborhoods. If we are unwilling to do this then in reality we are with our inaction saying to the people Christ died for, you don’t matter to us –in other words it’s ok for you to “Go to hell.” Some might say, It’s not my responsibility to reach the lost it’s the churches. Wrong answer! We are Christ’s ambassadors. Christ is making His appeal through us to a lost and dying world.

If all our efforts to create a place for people to hear good news are not producing the fruits of salvation and life transformation we need to ask the questions: why not, what could be done differently, how can we connect with and reach lost people? If we don’t understand the goal of our efforts we need to clarify it so we can achieve it. The goal is not to get people to church. The goal is to introduce people to Jesus and help them to grow in relationship with Him. While we do better than most when it comes to conversions we can not be satisfied with it. Normal or average is not a sufficient standard to live up to. We should seek to plunder hell and populate heaven. Individually and collectively we should live and represent Christ to our community in such a way that we make it hard to get to hell from Carteret County.

Are the communities that you and I live in closer to being transformed by the presence of Jesus through us or unaffected by the presence of Jesus in us? From an outreach and evangelism perspective my hope is to inspire us to live as a corporate body of believers in such a way that if the doors to our church closed tomorrow the County would have reason to mourn. This will not happen without you and me partnering with God to take Christ to the community instead of expecting the community to come to Christ within our four walls.

From a scriptural standpoint we could say people came to where Jesus was to hear Him speak and experience His wonder working power. The four Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John support this claim. However, the people didn’t come to the temple or synagogue to receive from Jesus. Jesus, the Head of the body, the church, came to dwell among them. The church went to where the people were not the other way around. In all of Jesus exhortations to His disciples dealing with preaching and declaring the Kingdom of God he never told them to invite people to come, He instructed them to GO! In Luke 10:1-3 Jesus sends out His disciples out to gather the harvest. 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out two by two ahead of Him to every town and place that He was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” The harvest fields in our community are white and ripe unto harvest, but the laborers are few. I have prayed and asked the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. Will you be the answer He uses to meet this need?

If you recall the parable of the Prodigal Son, the older brother—the good son—gets upset at his father for making such a big deal about the prodigal son—the black sheep of the family—returning home. If, as disciples, we are engaged in going out to the fields waiting to be harvested—made up of people all around us every day—and actually harvesting people we would have less time for arguing and pointing fingers, and more pleasure in celebrating lost people returning to the Father. We have to be careful not to develop an indifferent and apathetic attitude because more people aren’t coming to church and attendance isn’t growing. If we come under the subtle influence of that mindset we will justify ourselves and condemn others. We will say things like we are doing everything we can to possibly reach our community and we can’t help it if they don’t come. This excuse just will not do! We as believers must awaken to the fact that individually and collectively we are God’s method to reach and disciple others. People are dying to know Him and you are alive to introduce them to Him. How about this, invite your neighbors or a co-worker out for coffee or ice cream. Have them over for a meal. Go out on the boat. Go to the beach. Find ways to just be a good neighbor and love them where they are. Make it a priority to get to know them. Listen to them and find out what they are about and find natural connecting points to build a relationship with them. Before people care what, or who you know, they want to know that you genuinely care for them.

So what will it be? Will we continue to expect people to just show up at our services with the hopes of them coming to Christ? Or will we take Christ to the community? Will we use our small groups to take Christ to neighborhoods? Will we convert our homes and use them as ministry centers to reach our neighborhood? Will we use board rooms, restaurants and coffee house to take Christ into the marketplace?

How many ways can you think of to build bridges to the lost? Who are the people you want to reach? What are their names? If you get me the names of those you want to see come to Christ we will corporately pray over every one of them. If you bring pictures we will find ways to post them so people can pray in agreement with you.

We can do this! We can overcome every obstacle and excuse to be all God, our Father, created us to be and do! God has faith in us, if you can believe that! He entrusted His son Jesus to us! He has given us His spirit to empower us! Come on, believe again! Have faith! Let’s advance Christ’s mission with all that is within us and expect certain victory!

I can’t wait until the buzz around places you and I live is all about the incredible ways God is moving and transforming lives and our community. I long the church to once again be a shinning beacon of hope, healing, and restoration to all in need of a Savior. My heart will explode with joy when I start hearing comments; what is going on with the churches in our community? Something is going on out there and you have to tell us what it is. Or people saying, we are so thankful for the positive contribution your church family makes in our community. Or, I don’t know what we would have done with out your church’s help. If this fills my heart with joy can you imagine how it makes our Father feel. So, rather than having the Come to Church or Go to Hell debate let’s just adopt a beyond the walls mentality and take the message of Christ to every nook and cranny of our community.

Having the Guts to Care

Having the Guts to Care
Matthew 10:1-15 & Luke 10:1-16

In both of the passages given above Jesus is giving instructions to his followers. If you look at the heading of each of these sections it may read something like this. In Matthew mine reads The Twelve Disciples; Instructions for Service and in Luke it reads The Seventy Sent Out. Notice in Matthew’s account Jesus was giving instructions to the Twelve and Luke’s account he is giving the same instructions to the twelve again but also to the fifty-eight additional followers. Jesus reminded the twelve of the mission and equipped the others with the same message. He is doing it today. Do you hear Him? Will you receive from Him the power to go and do the work of the mission?

The only major difference between the two accounts is what Jesus said in Luke 10:2 “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Beseech means to beg for urgently or anxiously; to request earnestly: to implore. This has been my position and prayer for years and as we approach our Friends & Family Community Outreach weekend I urgently and anxiously implore you to pray the same and at the same time respond by becoming a laborer in the field of harvest. You see God is not in short supply of lost souls to reach and harvest. He is short on laborers whom He has called and equipped for such a time as this. Again, I ask, will you partner with God by investing yourself in the lives of others? Will you position yourself to love and serve those next door to you, at work, or most importantly among your own family? The relationships around you in your day to day life make up the field of harvest which the Lord of the harvest calls you to. Love and service is the best way to demonstrate and communicate the gospel message to those you care about.

I know many of us are busy these days. However, if we took the time to look at the life of Jesus we could easily determine that he was extremely busy as well. In Matthew 9:35 it say’s, “Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” Consider this; the area in which Jesus ministered was 40 miles wide and 70 miles long about the size of Puerto Rico . It has also been documented that there were at least some 200 cities with and estimated population of 15,000 each. This means that Jesus was ministering to close to 3 million people in His day. Now that is busy! So, in the midst of our business we can take heart and know that Jesus can identify and relate to our hectic world and chaotic schedules. However, my business affects me differently than business affected Jesus. My business causes me to be so self consumed to the point that I don’t have the time or emotional energy to love, care, or serve others in my spiritual field of harvest. How about you? If you read Matthew 9:36 you will see the driving force behind Jesus’ ministry and mission. It say’s this, “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them.” Two things to notice before I move on; first He had to see the people. I am not just talking noticing that people were there and possibly even in His way. In His seeing them He saw the image in which they were created. He identified with them. He saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd or maybe like children without a Father. He possibly saw the effects of sin and wayward living. He saw the sickness and disease that was robbing people of a life of health and fullness. Second, in seeing, Jesus was moved or felt compassion for them. I’m not talking about a form of superficial compassion that made Him feel sorry for the people in His path. I am talking about a deep emotion that generated swift spontaneous reaction that produced and intentional action; He healed their diseases and sicknesses. We have been empowered and equipped to do the same.

I titled this writing “Having the Guts to Care.” I will conclude with these final thoughts. The word compassion found in the above scripture has a much deeper meaning than most would catch by simply reading the scripture. The word for compassion literally means bowels. I discovered this in the book titled “Organic Church . "Neil Cole writes, “There is a good reason for using this descriptive word. When you really feel emotional, where do you feel it? Not in your heart, but in your gut. We don’t get butterflies in our heart; we get them in our stomach… So when Jesus saw all the people, His breath was taken away. He was hit in His solar plexus. He was bent over in discomfort.”

“Most of us are surrounded daily by people who do not have Christ, yet we walk through life without feeling it in our gut. Why? Because we don’t see them the way Jesus does. But we can.”

“The Bible reveals why He felt compassion for them. It is because He saw them distressed and downcast. The two words distressed and downcast are also highly descriptive. They are violent words. Distressed can be translated as ‘harassed,’ or even as ‘molested.’ The word downcast is a wrestling term that can be translated as ‘pinned down by force.’”

“Imagine how different church, and ultimately our world, would be if we all began to look past the calloused exterior of sinners and saw them as they truly are: harassed, molested, and violently pinned down by a wicked brute. As we begin to see past surfaces to the true state of people’s souls, we become people of compassion like Jesus.”

So, do you have the guts to care? You can! As a church we are providing you with opportunities to get involved with what God is doing and what He cares about. We do so by providing you with opportunities to reach out to those in your day to day field of harvest to invite and bring them into environments filled with love and grace. Week in and week out there are a variety of places to bring people into such as your small group, connection events, and celebration services. In addition we create strategic events like Friends & Family Weekend, Trunk or Treat, Christmas & Easter musical productions, etc…

In conclusion, reread the scriptures provided in this writing and look at the ways and means in which God equips and empowers you for the harvest. Pray and ask God to help you see the people in your field. Ask Him to flood your soul with breath taking compassion. Then respond however God leads you to.