21st Century Church 2

Church Outside the Church 2

We ended part one by saying this “So church now has to be outside of religion, outside any church building, and reflecting Jesus love for people. It has to be totally and completely trustworthy too. How on earth do we start that?”

First we need to attract people to us. Not to the church – they’ll never come. We need to attract them to ourselves as people. How to do that? Well, when we are new to our homes, how do we get to know our neighbours. We talk to them. We introduce ourselves, and hopefully we make friends with them. After a while we begin to feel a little bit safe with them so we might invite them round for coffee or even a meal. If that goes well, we may even get invited back again and so the potential friendship grows. We show them some love.

Some people receive love quickly and openly, while others are extremely wary and suspicious and stay ‘reclusive’ for a long time. sooner or later we may even arrive at the point where our new friends confide in us or ask us questions and we can start to proselytise a little bit. Nothing heavy – just the mention of our views and stance on God, Jesus, and the whole of the universe. Seriously, we go to church and if you’d like to come with us then we’d love to take you. An invitation and that is all.

Alternatively, if there is a problem in our friend’s life, we can offer to pray for them – maybe even with them. Again just the prayer and leave it at that until the subject arises again – as it surely will if that prayer is answered !!

The whole point of this approach is that there is no church. We are just befriending people, perhaps those previously hurt by the church, and seeking opportunity to help them or walk alongside them – to help them carry their load. Or as I blogged a week or so ago, we seek to go the extra mile with them – just because we are a friend. If church or faith or prayer is raised as a conversation starter, then we can react, but it is no use raising it again and again if people don’t want to know. They want to see our faith in action before they will ever want to talk about it. The want to see the demonstration of Holy Spirit’s power before they ask who He is. They want to see our Christian faith in action before they will ever want to know more about it.

And if they don’t ever want to know about it? This is a ploughing church we are talking about. It is a church that ploughs unbroken soil and maybe plants a few seeds. Some seeds will give fruit immediately but some will take longer and others may well harvest them. The purpose of this type of church is to listen to God, do as He asks, love the people, and show them Christianity in action. Anything over and above is either us trying too hard, expecting too much, or God’s favour upon us.

The truly amazing thing about it is that we are just like the original disciples – unqualified, inexperienced, virtually untrained and with no personal resources. Yet even as God used the originals, so He can use us too. God has always used the foolish to confound the wise. 1Cor 1:27

I am excited by the possibilities of such a “church” as this aren’t you?

©Chris Bennett May 2012