I've been having a pretty rough time lately. To update y'all, my team and I are now in Targu Mures, Romania – a beautiful college town in the rolling hills of the country. I can tell you that this blog has been culminating for the past month, just waiting for me to finally hammer it out on a computer. Bluntly, my main problem is that I feel like a salesman on this trip.
I've already written my sentiments about door to door evangelizing, and this blog will serve as a sort of part 2 to that one. The whole goal of this mission trip is to share God's love with His children who haven't heard about it. I feel as though it is not love that I am sharing, but a doctrine. A religion. Whenever we approach someone on the street (cringe) I see point blank the foot in the door method used my so many salesman. "Hi, whats your name? How are you doing today? Do you know who Jesus is?" We start off with a vague/fake interest in who the person is and how they have come to the place in life that they are – just to set the precident that we care about them. And not even 5 minutes into meeting them, send them the sales pitch. To me this conveys the message, "I don't care so much about you as a person or what you think or believe. I just want your soul."
That may sound harsh and many may argue with me – "but we honestly do care about these people! Thats why we're sharing the good news with them so that they can be joyful in God!". Sorry nay-sayers, but I don't think thats how Jesus went about things. You never read a story when Jesus walks up to someone who is downtrodden and says, "buck up champ, I'm here to save you" then walk away. Jesus was all about relationship. God could have went about salvation in a ton of other ways without having to come down to earth and get his feet dirty. But by coming down and entering into creation, He was conveying his want for a relationship. The day Jesus was born, God made things personal. It was no longer about sins and sacrifices. No longer about keeping a set of laws. It was about a face to face interaction with God. I believe that the old testament tells the story of what redemption costs – but when Jesus came onto the scene, theres no longer a need to look at the check book. All of this was done through relationship.
JC could have come down, died, rose and peaced out – right back to the clouds within 15 minutes, but he instead spent most of his life hanging out with people. Just chilling with them – being a friend and teacher. He didn't run around looking for people to chill with – people were drawn to him. They heard tell of this man and wanted to come hang out with him.
Thats the problem with christianity today. Its all still a relligion, when the reason for Christ was to take out religion all together. I'll be honest and say i find church, for the most part, completely dull, monotonous, and draining. There is no way God intended for us to cram into a room for 2 hours to be put to sleep by the story He's been telling over the time of our existence. This is the living, breathing God of creation. He is the God of waterfalls. He is the God of supernovas. He is the God of hurricanes. He is the God of the spring wind. This God didn't create us to sit in a room and listen to one man read from a book. He is the God who wants to engage every part of who you are when you worship. To do any differently would be dishonoring to God.
And to spread God's love without relationship would completely underride the reason of Jesus. If we do not take the time to get to know the people we are suppose to be sharing God's love with, then we might as well not even try. We must earn the right to speak, not demand it. If a total stranger came up to you and asked you to change the way you lived your life, you would think them a nutcase and hopefully be offended. But if a friend did so, you would be more likely to listen to what they have to say.
I have many issues with the idea that God left this message of salvation in our hands, but one way to cope with it is to look at the Kingdom as a family reunion. If God is all about relationship and wants His Kingdom on earth, then it is only the deep everlasting connections we make on this earth that will bring about that society of love. If we are more focused on making another believer than a brother, we will never be a family of Christ.
Its not about what we have to say about JC. Its about what we have to show about Him. Even if the friends we make never understand Jesus, at least we can share love in the way it was meant to be shared – not through words, but interactions. Love is not a message. It is a way of life. Lets start acting like it.
