We Are The Church
Share
print page
Posted by Steve Preston
in MULTIPLY
This following story is real. Only the names have been changed to protect the unbelievers. This is Southern California where 16 million people have never had the chance to know the love of Jesus, and where 6 of every 10 folks you will see in Taco Bell at lunch today have never been in church.
You and I are the church, with the commission to reach these folks.
Raw statistics are poor motivation because they can be easily dismissed. People’s faces are not as easy to dismiss. Here is a real “face.” I have a friend. Let’s call him John. He is in his 70’s and has lived in the same neighborhood all his life. Within a few blocks of his house is a Baptist church and right next door, one of our own SoCal AG churches. John has lived there so long that he tells stories of being a boy playing on the dirt mounds created when the people built those two church buildings. The last time we visited, John told me about the Baptist pastor taking his skates when the kids were playing in the uncompleted sanctuary. But I digress.
John has lived his entire life within blocks of those churches and so has Jane, his wife. Their four children were born, raised and now live in that same neighborhood. John’s grandkids live there, too. They have lived through joy, tragedy, weddings, funerals and new children all within just a very few blocks of both churches.
By living in the same neighborhood all this time, they are atypical Southern Californians. In the reality that John, Jane and their family are profoundly lost, they are very typical. They have not rejected Jesus; they have never heard His loving message. They do believe in God, and accept that Jesus was a great historical figure. There have been believers at their school and work. But those believers spent more time telling John and his family how wrong their lives were than they ever did of the love of Jesus. It’s not like John or Jane rebelled from the witness of godly parents. As far as I can tell, for at least 3 generations, John’s family has had no relationship to Jesus or His church.
Speaking about church, what about the impact of the two churches in John’s neighborhood? In his 70 years of “history” with an AG church, the operative phrase seems to be “irrelevant to his life.” The only interaction they had was when the church promoted something door to door or in a mass mailing (or when the Baptist pastor took a kid’s skates). To John the church and its message are irrelevant. Do you hear the heart of God breaking for John, Jane and their family?
Becky and I have developed a friendship with John, Jane and some of their family. I have had the opportunity to spend entire days in John’s garage working on a Model A engine, and sitting with he and Jane at lunch in their home. We talk quite a bit these days. And of course, Becky and I pray for them constantly. We have had some good conversations, occasionally about Jesus. But, as I write this, both John and Jane and their family are still profoundly lost. After all the years of neglect, they seem to view Becky and I with respect but see our church as only relevant to “church people.”
So, Becky and I continue to befriend, pray and look for the opportunity. Even if that opportunity never comes, they will be our friends. For us, they will be the “faces” of the 16 million, the 1 in 6. Because those 16 million are not raw statistics they are real moms and dads, kids and grandkids that live within blocks of our SoCal AG churches.
I ask you to consider the impact your church has had on your neighborhood. Are there “Johns and Janes ”in those homes? Every indicator says there are. I wonder how your church might reach them.
Feel free to call the Superintendent’s office for help answering that question.
Comments:
There are no comments for this entry yet.
Phone: 949-252-8400
Fax: 949-252-8435
Email: