Active or Passive

Active Christianity

“Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” Francis of Assisi

I suppose that Francis of Assisi is most people’s idea of a real saint. A man of much truth and much legend. A man who, history has it, was kind to all men and to animals – any creature of God’s creation. His most famous quoted prayer is “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

The main point we need to remember about Francis of Assisi, and of Mother Theresa, and William Booth, and many others like them come to that, is that theirs was not a spoken or verbal Christian faith. These people demonstrated an active Christianity. Not for them the years of quiet contemplative study, the translation or transcription of the scriptures, a life of prayer and near silence. I do not decry such people as these, but I do prefer action over inaction, demonstration over contemplation.

If I were to be put on the spot, and after over six decades to think about it, I would choose a lifetime of serving my God by demonstration rather than by any other way. Of course, I would also add, “Your will not mine” to that but my preference would always be towards the active rather than the passive. You see, I am not a natural pray-er, not a contemplative sort. I do spend time in prayer and I spend time sitting still with the Lord and listening to Him. I am a self-deprecating ‘action man’ – such comments as, “If I moved any faster the spiders web would break.”, apply to me. Yet I love to see faith in action. My actions, your actions, anything just so long as it is active. This is why we use activation sessions in our training evenings – to get people active in their faith. There is no point having a gift of the Spirit if we do not activate that gift and use it. I have always subscribed to the “use it or lose it” school.

I believe that the world and his brother is sick and tired of any Christianity that simply talks about all their failings, yet fails to do anything itself. The world is waiting, almost with bated breath, for Christians to come out of their sanctified retreats and demonstrate Christ’s love for them. They are sick and tired of being told of their sin when there is so much obvious sin within the church. They are tired of the Church’s hypocrisy. They want us to show them why they should look at our faith and take it seriously. William Booth, in the early days of the Salvation Army, used to hold ‘Jam & Glory’ meetings where people were literally fed first, to grab their attention, before the Gospel was preached. Just like Jesus did – He healed the people first then He preached. Just like we should be doing.

We now have a regular, once a month, stall in our local town market. I understand that we are planning to introduce a ‘prayer chair’ to that stall so that people can be prayed for. This has been done elsewhere with great success and I am praying this will allow us to show the Glory of God to people in order to grab their attention.

That’s a first step in activating our faith outside the safety of our four walls. Why don’t you try it too? Between us, we may just set the world ablaze.