Rick Haverly
December 12, 2004
THE DESERT OASIS
Why do we go through Advent every year? Why do we tell the same Christmas story every year? Because we need to know that Jesus comes to our world, not only 2,000 years ago, or in the 1950’s, or last year, but today. And we need to help bring Jesus to the world today. We need to look at the culture around us. The longer we are in the church the more our friends and activities are in the church. It becomes more difficult to be in touch with what is going on in the world outside the church. And that world is changing rapidly. According to religious pollster, George Barna the number of unchurched adults has grown 96% since 1991, nearly doubled, against a population growth of 15%.
Anecdotally, Christine was taking a course on death and dying in the Religion department at
From Dan Kimball’s church, they interviewed 16 students on the
In response, “students’ faces light up in smiles, ‘Jesus was beautiful.’ ‘I want to be like Jesus.’ ‘Jesus was a liberator of women.’ ‘I’m all about Jesus.’ ‘I want to be a follower of Jesus.’ ‘Jesus was enlightened and had higher truth.’ What encouraging answers! Here we are on a post-Christian campus finding students eager to talk about Jesus. I realized they probably weren’t familiar with the whole of Jesus’ teachings, but they held a high opinion of Jesus as an extremely positive figure in history.”
The second question was, “What comes to mind when you hear the word Christian?” For that response their expressions changed dramatically. Eyes looked downward; smiles turned to frowns and even pained expressions. They said, ‘Christians have taken the teachings of Jesus and really messed them up.” “I would want to be a Christian, but I have never met one.” “Christians are dogmatic and close-minded.” Christians are supposed to be loving, but I’ve never met any who are.” Christians should be taken outside and shot.”
Most discouraging of all was that only one person out of 16 even claimed to know a Christian personally. Their conclusions were based on general observations and hearsay. What they knew of Jesus, they liked, but what they knew of Christians, they definitely didn’t like.
That’s the world in which we live. That is the world we are to bring Jesus to. Now, I’m going to show you the commercial for our denomination that is so risqué and controversial that CBS and NBC refused to air it. http://godisstillspeaking.org/default.htm
That commercial tries to speak directly to the perceptions of the unchurched in the
Jesus ate and welcomed sinners and for that he took much criticism. And for that many within the Jewish tradition found Jesus offensive. And for that he was ultimately crucified. We are called to continue Jesus’ ministry welcoming sinners and extending God’s grace.
Now it’s one thing to put a commercial out saying all are welcome. It’s another to put it into practice and actually welcome people that do come here. You don’t have to have bouncers at the door to make someone feel unwelcome. It may be just as effective to ignore a stranger. People come looking for signs of caring and welcome and if they see us welcoming and having wonderful conversations with our friends and no one has even spoken to them, they really can come away with the perception that we think there is something wrong with them and won’t even associate with them.
We may say we welcome everyone but practicing it is harder and it really takes everyone’s effort. When I was working in churches in North Carolina, many, especially the clergy thought churches ought to be welcoming African American people and there were a few congregations that would do this. Others might humor the minister and let them talk about it until the next time they could get rid of this troublesome minister and get one who knew how things worked in the church. Others might let lip service be given to welcoming people but it was well known in the community that African Americans would find a very chilly reception should they enter that church with an expectation of joining it.
The church has struggled with who to welcome into the church from the earliest days. The first question is whether Gentiles could be Christians. There was an argument that God’s people had to be Jewish and follow the laws and rules of Moses, so anyone wanting to be Christian had to virtually become Jewish first. But Paul and others pointed out that path of obeying rules didn’t work for anyone. He reminded the church that we all are part of God’s family not by who we are or what rules we obey but by the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. He thought the real proof was that the people some wanted to reject had been given God’s Spirit and manifested the fruits of the Spirit. This was the real proof that God had accepted them already and the church ought to get on board. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our Christian character is not measured by obeying law but by living out these gifts.
That’s what is so exciting about being a part of this church. We don’t spend our time judging each other, but encouraging one another to growth and these gifts are very evident here. But we need to continue to bring Jesus to the world. Isaiah promised God would so transform the world that the desert would become a garden, fertile ground flowing with water for refreshment. I don’t believe that has been accomplished yet but God has given us an oasis as a sign of what is to come. We enjoy that oasis here and we need to offer it to others and to invite them in.
That is our mission in this world, to reclaim the desert and to invite others in to the oasis shelter. But it is harder to do than to say. We think the church is welcoming, and it is, but we can do better. We shouldn’t assume it is being done. A friend went to a new restaurant recently. He sat down and then waited for 20 minutes. No one came to his table, no one brought them water. Meanwhile other people came in and were being served and some even started to receive there food. So he went to one of the wait staff and started to complain. The wait staff started yelling at him. He said, I don’t need this, got up with his family and left. He won’t go back. We might assume a restaurant wants customers, but the way customers are treated will determine whether the customers feel wanted. We may assume we are a welcoming church but the way we treat visitors and guests will tell whether we really are welcoming. The way you treat guests will determine that.
One church has encouraged the rule of 3. That means that when the worship service is over when visitors are most likely to head for the door, members only speak to people they don’t know. When those conversations are over, then they can find their friends and have their usual conversation. It might be harder for the choir sitting among their friends so maybe they spend the first 3 minutes of coffee hour speaking to people they don’t know.
How welcoming is our church? Can we bring Jesus to this world and the unchurched people of 2004/5? I don’t think the commercial is perfect or solves everything. But at least it is an attempt and a beginning. The rest happens right here. We remember that Jesus received his greatest criticism from the strongest people of faith for welcoming the wrong people. The people of faith were offended. We may be criticized for welcoming the wrong people, but at least we will be in good company, and hopefully, if we are effective, we will have good company. Let’s welcome them.