One of the reasons we continue to drive out to the coast to the Coastal Church is because of the amazing teachings of the Surfing Pastor. His goal is to make sure that the teaching from the pulpit is aimed at working our hearts to live in Christ and to live out Christ. The teachings our awesome but sometimes they reach the level of standing out. Last Sunday was one of those times as he just wrapped up a series on "lab time"; covering 7 essential aspects to being a Christian. Those 7 include worship, prayer, study of Bible, fellowship, ministry, training and "outward transformation". It is Outward Transformation that this entry will focus on.
The pastor was struggling to categorize the final aspect of the 7 essential aspects. The first option was to call it evangalism or preaching or missions but those were too limiting. The scripture used was Matthew 5:13-16 which is the salt and light parts of the Sermon on the Mount. The pastor stated that the church is really good at getting people to Christ and telling them about the end but asks "what about the middle"? What are the best selling books about? What do we do in the meantime? What is the role of the Church? The role is to "bring the nature and message of Christ individually and corporately into every part and person of society. We are the fingerprints of God in culture." This means that we don't wait for someone to get saved before we engage them. This means that we don't make friendship conditional on them accepting our message. This means we need to be "in, but not of" and if we don't have contact with non-Christians we need to re-think our place in the Christian Ghetto. This means we get involved in everything, corporately speaking. We shouldn't run away from society then complain about it or even worse, we just don't care and just focus on the return of Christ. Again, if you are a Christian and don't have contact with non-Christians.... well, think about it.
I really believe we should developing unconditional friendships of all kinds (yes, even if they reject our message) as I find people are terribly interesting. They are all immortal and will live forever. As a church we need to break out of the Christian Ghetto and truly impact our society, not by puting up little Bible verses at work or dropping 4 Spiritual Law tracts into a mailbox but by engaging people and organizations at all levels of society. We cannot wait for the world to be saved, it's our job, as the Church, to try and save it. We are all called to do something! Find a place to feed the hungry, talk to someone you've never spoken to before (saying "hi" doesn't count), find a short-term mission trip, join the PTA, coach or umpire Little League, and so much more.
Listen here and notes are here.
Posted by Tim at September 26, 2005 09:51 PM
