TAKING GOD OUT OF THE CHURCH

GOING BEYOND THE FOUR WALLS

Nothing grows in comfort!

One of the traps we fall into as the church, is hiding within the four walls, preaching to the choir and ‘churching the churched’. There is a need for refuge and comfort, it’s important to encourage, build confidence and renew strength. Comfort zones also help remind you of who you are and centre you, but they aren’t a strategy for growth.

Often when Paul would enter a new city, he would first go to the synagogue and preach, for “iron sharpens iron”, but he wouldn’t stay there, he would then move into the marketplace and extend the gospel to those who hadn’t heard it. It is important not to ignore the body, lest people are plucked away and their faith diminished, but if that’s all you do, it will never grow. For an army to increase in number, we must extend our hand, go out to the unchurched and extend the message of God’s love.

SAVED BY GRACE

One of the worse things about religion is how after some time we can become so divisive, if we look at the Pharisee’s, they lauded certain standards over others and were quick to reject those who had any public stain of sin on them. We become less interested in people reaching the gospel when, one, we become judgmental, thinking of ourselves as better than them. And two, when we forget where we came from, we work so hard to clean up our image we forget we were saved by grace and are no better and no more worthy of the gospel. We should step boldly into who we are in Christ, but never forget how we got here, people don’t need to see the cleaned up, social media image you present, but who you are, who you were and that who they are doesn’t stop them from being who they can be.

FINDING COMMON GROUND

We have a tendency to become too religious, to the point we become completely unaware of the world we have been called to relate with. Yes we are not of the world, but we are in it, so we can’t ignore it and build for ourselves our own utopia that fails to interact with the world and introduce it to our God. The bible says we have been sent as “sheep amongst wolves,” so we aren’t here by accident we are sent. We have to increase our knowledge of the circumstances of the world to be equipped to engage it. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were a part of that world system, we must find common ground, be bold and selfless with God’s love, not looking to prove a point but to share God’s heart and love.