Taken from Leonard Sweet's blog (paraphrased) -- A pastor standing in the rain at a bus stop. Strikes up a conversation with a lady. "It's been raining for three solid days. We're going to need to build an ark." The lady responds: "What's an ark?" He says, "Haven't you heard of Noah and the great flood and all the animals going on the ark?" She says, "Honestly I've only been in town two days and haven't even read a newspaper." Insight: Welcome to the new mission field.
With that in mind I go back to the article I posted on Facebook about the Church of Scotland and their decision to allow singing hymns and using instruments in worship. (They had some lively debate you can read on their website.) They finally voted that singing hymns was not a sin.
One Christian group seeks to offer pure worship. Those yet to be reached have no idea what we are talking about.
One of the amazing points of the Christian way is the uniqueness of the various expressions of the Body of Christ. Today it was pointed out that God raises up churches that have unique personalities, practices and ways of extending the gospel of Jesus Christ into the mission field.
We generally fail the evangelistic task when we try to do things like everyone around us and present a "generic" strategy. All churches are united in Christ and at the same time unique expressions of the Body of Christ.
We have a unique style. We are unique people. We share a common faith with all those around us seeking to be faithful in our "mission field." As we claim who we are we will find ourselves offering Christ in very authentic ways. We will also discover that there are some people who are most likely to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ through our unique witness.
(Now if we can just figure out what that is!)
It's been a good day. I hope you've had a good day too.
Blessings.
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