Some helpful perspective when inviting someone to church for Easter

How does the church survive in a world that is not sympathetic to it? Last night I had another reminder of how alien it can feel to be a Christian and invite people to church. This morning I gained some helpful perspective on why all that is okay.

It's Easter season, and at Sanctuary we had some invitation cards produced. Rather than doing a mass mailing, we as a church are opting to pass them out person to person. It's challenging but more personal. Yesterday evening four of us met to walk around McKinley Park, praying and passing out invitation cards. One or another of us would walk up to random people and ask if they might be looking for a place to worship on Easter morning. Some of them were very happy to get the invitation. At least one parent seemed very interested in a supportive, spiritual community. Others gave us a polite, "Thanks but I'm not interested."

More than once I paused to look around the park. I have never seen that many people at McKinley walking, running, playing volleyball, and relaxing. The weather was perfect, and the park was alive with activity, as if all of Sacramento was there celebrating the arrival of spring. At one point we thanked God that he had inspired people to make parks.

Still, as I took it in, I couldn't help but feel very small as we strolled along praying and talking to someone here and there. It was as if the world was rolling along like a wide and powerful river, and we were a tiny breath making almost imperceptible ripples on its surface. I wondered if anyone would respond to the invitations we were handing out. It seemed like such a stretch.


I wouldn't be surprised if we all feel like that sometimes -- very small and powerless against the great God-resistant currents in our cities, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, sports teams, and host cultures.

This morning I read some comments in a book by Chuck Swindoll that provided key reminders and fresh hope. He was writing about the time when Jesus was talking with his disciples, and he asked them who they thought he was. Simon (Peter) said, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God." Jesus replied, 
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (Matthew 16:17-18)
Swindoll takes Jesus to be saying this:
The church would have staying power. Against all odds, it would prevail. Not even the adversary would overpower it. I will build my church. (The Church Awakening, 11)
Jesus is responsible for the success of his church and its mission. Of course, Swindoll reminds readers that Jesus was talking about his church universal not an individual, local church like Sanctuary. But the principle applies in this way: we don't have to worry about whether our local churches will grow. Jesus is responsible for growing his church. We work for the mission, yes. And not all local churches grow. But it's not for Christians to worry even when it feels like we are but a breath on a wide and powerful river. We can go on inviting and blessing people without all the pressure of "needing" them to say yes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Ten essential Dallas Willard quotes

Image
This week the church has lost a great saint and a shining light. Dallas Willard succumbed to cancer. As John Ortberg says in a wonderfully written tribute , Willard was brilliant, but "his heart and his life were better than his mind." I thought it would be appropriate to bring out ten quotes that do a pretty good job of getting at what Willard spent his life teaching and working on. 1. This quote states the central problem Willard spent his career working on: "My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." (opening paragraph of  The Divine  Conspiracy ) 2. The central problem, restated: "The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." ( The Gre...
Read more

Why I have no hope of going to heaven

Image
I have little hope of going to heaven. In fact, I don't even want to go to heaven. Why? Because if we mean by "heaven" the final destination for God's people, then heaven isn't somewhere we go at all. Heaven isn't up in the sky. Heaven is here. When we say "heaven," most people think it's the place you go when you die. You are with God and his people, and you live forever in eternal bliss. The trouble is, that's a half-truth. It's not the biblical hope. Imagine it like this. Say you are living in a house that has been your beloved home for a long time, but it has fallen into disrepair. The plumbing is bad, the roof leaks and the house is infested with termites. You have painted the walls, and you even bought new kitchen appliances. You love the house, but it needs extensive work. Now through the generosity of a rich relative, you suddenly come into an inheritance huge enough that you can have your beloved house completely remod...
Read more

Backpacking at the Dinkey Lakes

Image
I just returned from a backpacking trip in the high Sierras with my dad and oldest son. We packed in an area near Fresno called the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Yes, the lakes were dinky, as in small. Most natural alpine lakes are. But the place is really named for a small dog named Dinkey who protected his master by attacking a charging grizzly bear, giving the man time enough to grap a rifle and kill the bear. Dinkey lost his life for his act of heroism, but he was such an inspiration that an entire Sierra wilderness was named after him. Anyway, we visited eight lakes, each of them stunningly beautiful in its own right. The visit was everything we could have hoped. We shared adventure, exploring places we had never been. We fished -- successfully. We swam and goofed off. We enjoyed each other's company. There is nothing like three generations of a family getting large chunks of uninterrupted time together. The bonds between all three of us were strengthened, and for that we are deepl...
Read more

A test of your relationship with God

Do you have the kind of relationship with God that is like a married couple, including fights and spats? That’s the biblical, Jewish picture of a person who really knows God.  At a certain point in life when I was dealing with some major disappointments, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to yell all my frustrations at God than go through a separation and live apart from him. That’s why I love this quote from Lois Tverberg and her quote of Peter Kreeft so much. Trust me, you’ll want to read to the bottom of this discussion of Job.  “Job’s friends were making the mistake that Western Christians do today when we don’t have a Hebraic understanding of the ‘knowledge of God’—da’at Elohim. A Westerner opens the Bible and wants to prove God’s existence and construct a theology to explain God’s nature. We would call that ‘knowledge of God.’ But in Hebrew, to ‘know’ someone was to be familiar with him through experience and relationship, as a wife knows her husband.....
Read more

Connecting with God when it feels like nothing special is happening

Image
I read recently that Facebook has been known to lead to depression. This person just enjoyed a vacation to Hawaii. That person's kids are cuter and apparently don't act up like yours. And that friend over there just won another award. If you're feeling sassy about your life, you join in on the bragging parade. If that little gray cloud is hovering over you reminding you of how things just aren't turning out, Facebook makes it worse. Today I decided to raise my fist in protest by writing a post about the morning my walk with God was less like leaping forward and more like shuffling along. It's like getting on Facebook and posting, "Nothing special happened in my world this morning. You feel me?" This morning I got up and made tea like usual. I sat in my chair like usual. I began my prayer time, like usual, with these words: "You were [God’s] enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself...
Read more