I love how our community is redefining "outreach". Growing up in the institution of the church - and more recently, in the "church growth" era of the institution - outreach has always been defined as a program or event designed to bring people to US and not really much about us going OUT into our community.
While I'm sure these events and programs are well-intentioned, one need only look at the fruit to judge the effectiveness of this approach. Numbers of people in worship are in a steady decline and the church has never been more anaemic in its influence of our culture. Its almost as if the church has settled for doing its own thing and if people outside our circle show up, GREAT! If not, at least WE were entertained!
As skeptical as I can be with the way things have been in the past, I am optimistic that things are changing. In fact, I've never been more confident that things are changing! A member of our community asked me last night if her and her husband could oversee the outreach focus of The River. Now, she wasn't talking about organizing carnivals or scheduling some major recording artist for a concert (although there is nothing inherently wrong with these things).
No, she was thinking about things that would, in the truest sense of the word, reach out to those in our neighborhood, in our state, in our nation and in our world without expecting anything in return. I believe this is the only way that we'll ever earn the right to speak the truth of the gospel into the lives of those who don't yet have a relationship with Jesus. I'm sure you've heard the old adage - "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." I really believe that. The question then becomes, do we care enough about others to step out of our comfort zones (and into their world) and serve them?
We're past the age that people will be argued into the Kingdom by propositional truth alone. Its only when people experience the unconditional love and acceptance of Jesus through His followers that they will be drawn in to relationship and walls will be broken down. This paradigm of outreach actually reaches out...not just expects others to come to us.
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How many times does God communicate with us in His Holy Word about defending the cause of the widow, the orphan, and the defenseless as compared to spreading "the Gospel?" Perhaps that is the point--when we, as a priestly kingdom, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow [Isaiah 1:17-18], we are the Good News incarnate. The Light shines in the darkness.
A myopic focus on bringing people in rather than going out gives us permission to stay in our comfort zone, to dictate Christianity on our terms rather than seeking to truly identify with where someone else is at in their journey and learning from the wisdom of those who possess less material wealth than we do but perhaps deeper spiritual insight (e.g., about hope, being generous, etc.). An inward-focused evangelism also exposes us to the danger of becoming a purveyor of goods and services, a "brokerage house" as Shane Claiborne says. He defined this as the "poor" coming to the church to "get stuff" and the "rich" coming to "drop stuff off, but no one leaves transformed." Sometimes we have to leave the trappings behind to understand the human soul from a God's-eye view and to foster life-changing relationships beyond "getting someone saved."
Thank you all for the privilege of teaching me again and again how to do "small acts with great love" (again, credit to Mr. Claiborne's teachings!). I pray that God will continue to bless us as a family born of Spirit and not of flesh and to open our physical and spiritual eyes to the many needs around each of us (and collectively) every day.
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