So how do we move past church as a cheap country club membership where we come together to feel good about our “Christian life”? Because even though it may seem like I am totally against church from my last blog, I am not against it. Im actually desperate for it and crave it more than anything. Obviously, since Christ set it up as something we need and have to have. So what does it look like to move past the thing “we are supposed to do”?
(Community-the key to church)
Genuine love. Seems simple, but as I have been realizing the last couple months on the race, genuine love can ONLY come from Christ because I don’t love people very well. Especially people I don’t know. And it’s hard to love people we barely know. Christ has to show us how to love them the best that we can. But I think we can indirectly love every person in the world through another person.
I should probably explain that one. The rule of “6 degrees of separation”. This rule says that everyone in the world is within 6 people of knowing every other person in the world. I am within 6 people from knowing every single person. It’s a stat that’s been studied and shown to be true. Every person is within 6 people of knowing everyone. Crazy, right?!
So how does that tie in to genuinely loving every person indirectly through one person? In my head this is making sense, and I hope it does to you too. But this works when I fulfill my duty to love my neighbor as myself and in return, my neighbor loves their neighbor, and if we do that 6 people away, the whole world is loved. (this is probably the hardest blog ive ever written, because I hate math and am convinced Satan invented it.)
(Funny scene from the show Community-it fits cause im talking about community)
Even though I hate math, I love this option. And it seems to make sense, because the gospel is so relational. Sometimes it works, rarely, but I don’t think we are meant to stand on street corners and pass out tracts. I am passionate about NOT handing out tracts, so I may be biased, but I think God made the Gospel so relational so we don’t have to use things that piss people off more than convert them. Sometimes tracts work, but its purely by the grace of God and I believe work in that individuals life before the tract was put in their hand. But anyway, relational. The Gospel was made to be relational. Its why Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. If all of us who called ourselves Jesus followers would do this the way we are called to, through the 6 degrees of separation, everyone would be loved. You are a neighbor to a person in Asia, and a person in Asia is a neighbor to someone in Africa, even though they may never meet. Crazy to think about right?
Im going to give you an example, not because I think I know it all, but because ive experienced it and its worked. Back home, before the race when I didn’t like church and decided against going a lot, I also decided that if I am not going, I am being. So, my friend Pete and I started this thing we called breakfast club. We invited people over to our house and made breakfast and just sat around talking about life and having a good time. There was, for the most part, not much preaching. No responsive readings, or people asleep in the back row.
There was, however, peoples prayer requests being heard, community coming behind each other. Through breakfast, we learned the needs of people by interacting with them in close quarters and being friends with them. Saved and not saved. We saw people who loved Jesus being encouraged by it, having their needs met and growing closer to Him because of it. I also became friends with more non-Jesus freaks than I ever have in my life. This is because church was a group of people being relational. We moved closer together, and learned how to love people as they are. We had Christians growing closer to Him and to each other through it, and at the same time, we saw non-Christians coming to know Him. There were no separate times for evangelism and discipleship, it was happening all at the same time.
And what’s mind blowing is that somehow, if we take the same love that we shared in that house and each person shares it with their friends, love is shared with the entire world. And if you are married, your outreach expands that much more. Mind blown!
