When opportunity knocks...

2 Thessalonians 3:1 "Pray that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you."

"There is great opportunity right now for the church to spread the word of God in the world and to bring those who are in darkness into light."

I am convinced that this statement is true, not just now, but always. We live in a broken world full of broken people...broken people who want to be made whole. I have been thinking a lot about this recently, and I think that if these people can't find the way to truth, the problem isn't them, it is the church. If we aren't connecting with people, we're not using the right words.

The Word of God is eternal--but the vast majority of what the church does to connect to the world isn't directly mandated in the Word. I am not aware of a directive that says this is what the church should look like--other than; it should be the temple of the Holy Spirit, the bride of Christ, the children of God in one body, united in worship. But the worldly part of us wants to be right, and wants to be in charge. We want everyone to look like us(whoever us may be). And so when the church reaches out to the world I think we try to transform the world into the image of our fathers rather than the image of our Father.

There are a lot of calls to lots of things in the Bible. But as far as I know there isn't anywhere in the Bible where it says that you have to sing a couple songs then pass the offering plate, then have a sermon then sing another song, and all stand up and sit down on cue. There also isn't any place in the Bible that I am aware of that it says that we should divide the church along racial and economic lines. I'm just sayin is all...

But back to my original point. There is a great task and opportunity to sow and reap. Now. But the church has to be willing to reach out to people who wouldn't be caught dead in most churches in this country. It has to be willing to reexamine what it means to worship. and ask the questions: Is the performance we put on every Sunday morning enough? Are we called to be a theater? Or is there something more we should be aiming for?

Don't get me wrong. The message can't change. The gospel is for all time. And the Word is eternal. But it just seems like sometimes we get the delivery all wrong.

Word? or Deed?--what's it gonna be

We are called to two different things: To "feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, invite the stranger in, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned." And to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

St Francis said: "Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words." The idea I think is that if you live your life in a Christ centered way people will see the light in you and be drawn to Christ. Then, as I have heard it said in many Christian circles, people will ask you, why are you so good--and you can then use words. As far as I can tell that's a load of hooey. I know that I for one have never been asked--why are you so great. That's probably because I'm arrogant, caustic, and, in fact, not all that good. But how about a show of hands. How often is it really that this works?

Words are necessary. I think it is absolutely essential to any mission to speak truth and to make clear the purpose of what we do. I think that most of the time when people begin to talk a lot about lifestyle evangelism (the idea you can convince someone that God exists by the way you live) what they mean is "I'm scared to acknowledge Christ because I think people might think less of me." At least that's what I mean when I start talking about lifestyle evangelism.

And Deeds are necessary. Christ called us to serve the down and out, the have-nots, the children, the needy. Over and over and over again he preached that message. And I don't think the point of good works is to bring people to Christ. He draws us to himself. The point of good works is to express our love for those who are made in the image of God (i.e. all human beings).

Words are not sufficient. James said faith without works is dead. We have to act on our faith and we have to be willing.

Deeds are not sufficient. Without faith, good works are just that. There are lots of people out there who do lots of good things without having any sort of faith. But ultimately they are still broken, without hope.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that in Christ we are filled to overflowing with love for the things that God loves, and that the expression of that is to desire good things for those God has created. And so we preach the gospel to bring life and healing to the dead and broken, and we feed, heal, clothe etc those who cannot make it on their own. Word and Deed are the same thing. They are both essential and important.

In fact I think I can go so far as to say that without the other each one individually is exposed as a lie. We convince ourselves that we're ok--I preach the gospel, I don't have to feed the hungry--or I do good things for people and lead a good life, I don't have to preach the gospel. That is a lie. We are called by Christ to both feed the hungry and feed the hungry.

Going to Honduras

I'm leaving today for Honduras. I'm going to work with an organization called International Samaritan that works with families that live and work on the garbage dumps in Central America. I'm going to San Pedro Sula where they are in the process of building a medical clinic which will be dedicated later this year. We're going to be doing a community health assessment and baseline exams to try to help them determine the most cost effective ways of improving the health of the people there.

I'm excited to go. I hope that it will be a good trip and that I can be reasonably useful to the people there. I am disappointed that I have to leave these two behind though: