Creating Safe Places for God's Lost People

This past Sunday we looked at Luke 5:27-31 a little differently. Luke 5 reads,

“After these things [Jesus]went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” ²⁸ So he left all, rose up, and followed Him. ²⁹ Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. ³⁰ And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, “Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

In this passage Levi, a tax collector, decided to follow Jesus. Upon making that decision the first thing he did was throw a big feast (or party) and invited all of his other tax-collecting friends over to his house. Without noting the obvious lesson here of the spiritually sick needing a doctor, Levi set forth, by example, a simple outreach strategy that I had not considered before. Levi’s party was simply dinner at Levi’s house with Jesus as His special guest. Levi created a safe place for his tax-collecting, “sick” friends to come and interact with Jesus for a time. Nothing fancy, but oh so special- Jesus was there!

 

At BCC we are actively re-considering outreach. Is outreach, at its base, simply creating safe places for lost people to come and rub shoulders with Jesus? The church is Jesus’ body (Col.1:24) and every time we welcome others to walk alongside us there is the potential that they will rub shoulders with Jesus too. However, we cannot expect them to come discover Jesus if we do not provide them safe places to do so.

 

This Sunday we are seeking to create a safe place for God’s lost people whom He loves to come by throwing a back-to-school cookout. We are going to dumb down the religiosity a bit. A prayer, perhaps a testimony or two, but otherwise it will be simply friends hanging out with friends and sharing Jesus in casual conversation.

 

Please pray that many of our friends will come and be curious about the source of the loving life of our people.

I Think They Will Join Us If They Trust Us

Back in February I wrote a post called “Are We Trusted”. In that post I talked about the need to establish trust with people in the community. I asked, “How do we as Christians establish trust with our neighbors when time and time again people are finding their first impressions about their neighbors so wrong?” I then talked about the trust that has been built with a certain leader in our community and how the trust developed over time.

I firmly believe that trust provides a solid bedrock for any relationship. If people cannot trust each other, in marriage, friendship or other, they have no solid ground from which to build their relationship. In this post I would like to consider how the bedrock of trust enables our relationships with our non-Christian friends to potentially grow into the highest form of relationship; that of Christian brothers and sisters.

I am learning that the bedrock of established trust empowers me to ask meaningful, even pinching questions. Trust grants me the authority to go below the surface of relationship. If I am not trusted I will not be granted that right. Trust must be earned, and once it has been earned any number of conversations can be had because the person trusts me. They know they are not being tricked. They feel as if I have a right to know. They believe I care for them. Trust takes longer to build with some than with others. Trust may take a great long while to establish with someone who has been repeatedly hurt by people. But again, once it has been established the ingredients are there to build higher and higher and higher until we both become devoted followers of Christ.

Here’s how this has played out recently; A number of months ago a non-Christian friend of mine informed me of a friend of hers who was going through a tough time- we will call her friend Ed. Ed was taking care of his aging parents and finding it incredibly stressful on other aspects of his life. I stopped by his office one day because I happened to be in the same building where he worked. My non-Christian friend had encouraged Ed to talk to me even though he had never met me so my arrival at his office was not a complete surprise. We talked in his office for about 15 minutes that day wherein I told him that if he would like to grab coffee sometime I would enjoy it too.

A couple weeks later we met for coffee. It’s been a slow-growing relationship since then. Some weeks it was just small talk and enjoyable coffee. Other weeks it was deep. We are at the point in our relationship now where he trusts me. He knows I genuinely care about him. He knows I am not trying to get anything from him. Because of this bedrock of trust I sensed was there I invited him into a Bible discussion group with me and a few others and he quickly agreed to be a part. Is he actually curious about the Word of God? I don’t think so; at least not yet. But he trusts me and was therefore not afraid of the invite.

Ed and I are set up now to have the highest form of relationship- that of brothers in Christ. Ed may end up rejecting the Word of God and thereby disallow brotherhood through Christ; but the necessary ingredients are there for him to find Christ. He trusts me. He is reading the Word of God. My only prayer now is that the Lord will convict His heart through the Word to repent and turn to Him.

I believe that if we will build trust with people they will join us if we invite them along.

Opening the Word of God With Our Friends

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb.4:12).

What would be the sociological result if every family in our community opened the Word of God together every night and let it speak into their lives? What would happen if every household shut off the TV and phones from 7-8pm and just let the Word of God speak into the room? What would we see happen? What would begin to take place in our city? In 10 years I believe we would see upside-down change. We would hardly recognize the place anymore.

Of course this assumes that there are people in every home with sincere hearts who fear the Lord enough to accept what He says. But if we could just imagine the implications for a moment I think we would agree that the results would be astounding. The Word of God is living and active. It cuts and pierces and gets at the deep dirtiness of our hearts. It has the potential to bring about world-wide change because the world-wide problem is the dirtiness of our hearts. And if instead of all the radio, TV and internet junk we feed our minds every day we would begin to channel in the Word of God, even in small increments, the personal and societal changes would be more than could be predicted.

I was recently challenged by an Elder in the church to gather my non-Christian friends together, 3-6 in a group, to read the Scriptures and talk about its meaning. Since daily Scripture reading was already a habit of mine I thought this challenge very doable. So I approached Tom and said,

“Hey Tom, what are you doing on Tuesday nights?” (Let him respond). “I was wanting to get a group of guys together to have coffee, read a passage of Scripture, talk about what it says and maybe take prayer requests for each other. Whenever I have done this in the past it has always been transformative for everyone involved. I want you to be involved. If I could arrange a good time for all of us would you be a part of it?”

Out of 9 people I have asked to be involved only one person said they would not be interested even if they had the time. I currently have two groups of friends gathering every week to read the Scriptures and discuss them and so far everyone has enjoyed it very much. One guy even said, “Knowing that I am created in the image of God I think can help me a ton when I get depressed. It’s like I know I am special.”

I want to encourage you to make daily Scripture reading a habit for you. Then, I want to challenge you to invite your non-Christian friends to participate with you. In your gathering time(s) you do not teach, you do not preach. You just let the Word of God speak and facilitate the discussion accordingly. In order to see personal and societal transformation we must get the Word of God into people’s hands so that it can begin to cut deep into their hearts. I am learning how to do this now; you can learn too.