What are we waiting for?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Driving home today from our family vacation, I thought I was going to grab a pillow and nap while the children were sleeping…that didn’t happen. So, I decided to work on my lesson plan for our Wednesday night bible study…yea that didn’t really happen either. So I sat there, half wanting to sleep, half watching the clouds roll in for yet another breathtaking monsoon storm over the desert and half (yes there are three halves in this story I don’t do math on Friday’s) feeling like I should do something productive, I see the words JESUS SAVES pained in huge 8′ tall letters on a billboard by the side of the freeway. Then further down the road a billboard advertising “The Cool Church”, and no its not referring to the temperature in the sanctuary.

I counted around half a dozen various signs along the freeway over the course of about two hours. There were even a couple of large empty train cars with Jesus name painted on the side of them.

This got me thinking, REALLY? This is how we proclaim our Savior to the world; billboards, hip messaging (can’t use the word cool twice in the same blog, that is not cool apparently), talking about our houses of worship as the newest cutting-edge option to hearing the gospel? What happened to being set apart? What happened to not conforming to this world? I get it, we want to stay relevant, we want to get the word out and a billboard on the side of the interstate with literally hundreds of thousands of people driving by each month, seems like a good way to do it…doesn’t it?

What happened to discipleship, what happened to authenticity, what has happened to genuine relationships? I think I need to state this is not a treatise on the evils of modern communication or technology, I love my smart phone and social media and being connected. Nor am I saying that billboards on the side of the road are a bad thing. We know from scripture that God can use anything, anyone and any mode of communication to spread the gospel and to further His kingdom.

I think it’s important to remember that real relationship begins face to face and person to person. Relationship is the way in which two or more people or organizations regard and behave toward each other. Relationship can’t happen outside of interpersonal interaction. I think kitschy signs are funny, and finding new ways to get the word out about who you are is fine. However, if we are not actually touching people where they are with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are just words flying by at 65 mph.

The truth is Jesus didn’t write a bunch of scrolls and send them out to the masses asking for them to attend synagogue. He went to the people who needed him most. What seems to be a trend with some churches, as they experience attrition they advertise, doing whatever they can think of to ‘get their name out’, then hoping people will walk through their doors. Since when has our example ever been waiting for people to come through our door?

Jesus came to earth to save us, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day.” John 6:38-39

Jesus came to us, just as he came to the woman at the well, the blind, the lame, the broken and the dead in body and spirit. Jesus came…He didn’t wait for us to figure out how to save ourselves and fix our brokenness (as if we could). He came and found us in the gutter, living in spiritual squalor and gave us His hand and pulled us out of the mud, and washed us white as wool.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

He sent us out to make disciples of all nations…but here we sit waiting for people to walk through our doors.

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