Going into East Central with my group the other day, we saw some home run businesses. I started wondering, “What’s the best way to reach these people?” Whether these businesses are successful is not my main concern, but the people running them are. These people are either tired of the bump and grind of a typical career choice (non-conformists), or they have fallen into a trap (gullible), or this is a last resort (desperate), among many other reasons. The struggle is, you can look so deeply into what something looks like from the outside, but until you actually go inside, you will never know for certain what‘s going on. Assumptions are terrible to make, because they are not based on facts. In mission, we have to base our knowledge of the people we are connecting with on facts. If you go into a situation making judgments based off of someone’s appearance, or what have you, you will either; scare yourself away from the situation or not come off as the friendly person you should be striving to be.
Say that you successfully build a relationship with someone, this opens up a whole new bag of candy. So many options present themselves pertaining to the “how to…” and “what way to…” present the Gospel, but maybe the main focus should be on the who. In class today we talked about 1 Corinth. 9:19-23 and Paul’s reaction to this dilemma. Paul embedded himself in specific culture identities to better proclaim the Gospel to each specific group. In verse 23 he says, “I do all this for the sake of the Gospel…” He wasn’t changing it to help convey his own agenda or to try to trick people into believing. He humbled himself and let the Gospel do the work. I feel like this way of doing mission gets lost, people are too afraid to practice boldness for the sake of the truth. We can’t come off as posers, but we have to be able to relate to those struggling. The do-gooder mentality and the candy-coating of the Gospel has to stop!
-Colten
i really liked the way you used candy as an analogy. i agree we have to stop candy coating the gospel and let the spirit work.
No more complacency in the church! You’re right, Colten. It needs to start with us working toward getting to know people. Good imagery with the candy:)
It’s so hard to move away from assumptions, but they provide such terrible barriers to ministry. The only way to determine whether these people you are talking about are gullible, desperate, or non-conformists is to spend time with them in fellowship. Its amazing how simple the answer is, yet how difficult it sometimes seems to start the process.
There is always more to people than what meets the eye and your are correct when you say that the only way to truly get to know someone is through engagement. I like it man.
I agree that the candy coating of the gospel needs to stop. Also we do have to humble ourselves and make an effort to get in before speaking out so to speak. Our assumptions can damage our attempts at outreach.
Being a Christian is HARD WORK! We just need to continuously humble ourselves and allow God to do work in us and for the city. Thanks for the post, Colten.