This blog is inspired by a message by Darrin Patrick called The
Practices of a Missional Church.
I have been taking a class at CBU
called Christian Missions; which is essentially a class on how to go beyond one
on one evangelism to planting churches (locally and globally). The question of “Why
should I as a Christian care about being Missional, much less evangelistic?”
has been framed in a variety of different ways in this class. Of course I’m not
talking about the Bible bashing “get you act together and go to heaven”
tactics. I’m simply referring to the Church body taking an active loving interest
in the spiritual well being of those around them. Darrin’s message doesn’t deal
so much with the why as much as the how.
I may not agree with everything that Darrin says but I agree
his intent. We cannot teach the world about Christ, if we do speak their language.
A fancy word I’ve picked up in my class is indigenous. In class we have
been learning that for a Church to be vibrant it its community it needs to
reflect the culture of the people who are indigenous (natural) to the area.
This does not mean that we are to start melding religions together to make the
message of Christ gentle and comfortable. Rather we are to use what is common
to the indigenous people to speak the truth of Jesus Christ.
After listening to what Darrin said I am left with
undeniable reality that people are dying because I have refused to learn how to
speak the truth in an understandable way to those that I do not know and even
to those who I do know.
If I know you, and you don’t follow Jesus the Christ as your
Savior let me say something. I apologize for not telling you the truth in the
kindest, gentlest, and humblest way possible. I love you; I do not hate you,
but I have not done my part in warning you. Please forgive me, but do not deny
Christ and His Father the Glory due to them just because I am too arrogant to
speak the truth; which is, Christ came to take the punishment of dying on the
cross so that we don’t have to; IF we accept Christ as our savior.
