I'm sure you've all heard it before. "The Bible was written a long time ago to a different culture," or "I don't read the Old Testament because as a 21st century Christian, I just cannot relate to it," or "We want to be a church that invites people in, so we don't preach that old Fire and Brimstone stuff anymore."
Pastors and church leaders are slowly looking around at the world we live in, and they are seeing some disturbing trends. Divorce rates are crazy high in and out of the Church; People who claim to be 'Christian' openly confess that Jesus doesn't have to be the only way to heaven; Our country, which prides itself on being the center of the Christian world, is seeing legislation and popular movements that are absolutely pushing Jesus and his teachings further and further into the backdrop of our society.
In response to these trends, it has become common to see in Christian bookstores, and to hear on Christian radio and in the Sunday morning pulpit, discussions on how to become a force in the culture again. How do we assert the power of Jesus into the everyday lives of this nation? How can we inspire our members to take a stand and do what is right and needs to be done for the Lord in their everyday lives?
And these talks always talk about method. Some people have totally relaxed their church services in an attempt to make it more inviting. Coffee, donuts, superbowl parties, block parties, movie nights are all ways that churches have tried to become more appealing to the world around them.
But these men and women who are wrapped up in this game are missing the truth and the power of the situation.
WE MAKE IT RELEVANT. WE ARE THE FORCE FOR CHANGE, NOT A GIMMICK OR A COMPETING SERVICE TO SOMETHING THE WORLD OFFERS.
Zondervan and Lifeway can, and do, sell books by experts on culture telling us how to influence our neighbors and cities for Christ. They give strategies and tips on how to talk to people, how to break the ice, how to organize parties that people might like to come to.
But how is an 'expert in culture' supposed to know more about our city and our neighborhood and our schools and our friends, than we do? The average lay person knows more about the current culture where they live, and the trends and feel of their friends and neighbors than any two experts put together, simply because we live in that culture everyday and we talk and socialize with those people everyday.
In the book of Numbers, chapter 6, God lays the groundwork for those people of his who wished to take on extra responsibility and extra vows for him. They were laymen who were already considered holy simply because they were God's chosen people, but they wished to become as zealous in their holy living as they could in honor of their LORD.
God called these people Nazirites. Chapter 6 of Numbers lays out the rules and requirements that these people had to follow during their vow to him. Those who took this vow became almost as holy as their priests were.
Flash forward to the New Testament, and in 1st Peter 2:9-10, we are called "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
God expects YOU to be his priest. He expects YOU to proclaim his name and his glory and mercy to your friends.
We want the preacher or the sunday school teacher to do everything. But we can do everything they do more effectively. What I mean by this is they want to reach men and women's hearts with the truth and hope of the Gospel, and so they try to preach relevant texts to people, in order to tell them of their need for Christ.
But we are the ones who live and work with these people. We don't have to think hard or long about how we can be relevant, because we share many of the same interests and activities.
God wants us to be a nation of priests for him. Where we see the church fail, we are seeing not the failure of the pastor or the administration, but of OURSELVES to go out and preach the Gospel.
We must take the lead, and become modern day Nazirites for the Lord.
-Brett
No comments:
Post a Comment