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We joined another group of Christians this morning for singing and learning together. The morning went pretty much as usual, but as we were plugging along, I noticed something again, nothing earth shattering, but I just wanted to write it down here.
The sermon today dealt with our mission. The title was “Owning The Mission”. In general, the point was that our main mission, our purpose, as Christians and as the church is evangelism. That is what God most wants for us to do. She told lots of great stories and Scriptures that helped support that point.
And all the while, I was building my argument against it! I was thinking, “The MAIN thing he wants from us it to Love God and Love People… Jesus said it!” You may know that I have been thinking a lot recently about how we can live out our relationship with God more than just in the things we do, but in a way how we think. Our worldview. Just being a Christian instead of doing Christian things. So, with all of that background, I was ready to refute this, “Evangelize-Or-Suffer-Guilt” message with all sorts of Scriptures of my own.
As my brilliant argument was coming together, I had a thought. “Wait,” I thought, “Perhaps it is just that God wants to use her in this way (and even the people He has put in her path of influence)… and he is wanting to use me in another way – in the relational, loving sorta way. PERHAPS… these are two aspects of the same thing?”
I had to smile. I mean, I know that. God has made us all unique. Each of us has been specially created to be who He made us to be. To affect those around us in the way he has designed. The apostle Paul was a gung-ho missionary dude. Heading out to every nook and cranny, looking for opportunities to help people. James, Jesus’ brother was no less visible in the early days of the church, but remained in Jerusalem. Other we hear less from, but they were no less important, or certainly no less “Christian”. Perhaps God was using each of them in different ways?
See, I think in the end, the mission really ISN’T about what we do. It’s about knowing and loving and being known and being loved by our Father. I am willing to admit that I am skewed toward the way God has made me. But I also believe we are easily swayed toward the notion that we have to DO something. When in fact, the best stuff happens when we are not even trying. God can use us most it seems when we are spending our energy getting to know him, and working on the things he is doing in our lives… and the others around us get the benefit of seeing a life being changed on the inside by a loving Father. Sometimes God uses our words, more often (I think) he uses our lives, our actions.
So, for a moment today, God reminded me how silly I am. 🙂 Instead of fighting for truth, I need to love the diversity of God’s people and celebrate the many ways He works through His body.
We all do.
I can’t stand the word “evangelism”, mostly because it has all sorts of annoying associations, like “Republican” and “Evangelicals” and of course, the usual stuff about forcing one’s beliefs and fundamentalism and all that jazz.
With that said, however, I would like to suggest that we really are ALL supposed to be missionaries. Really. But to each his own, the way God made us. Maybe it’s just another way of looking at what you said already, but I’d say that each of us is to use the gifts we’ve been given to show Jesus to a fallen world – and that is, by definition, being a missionary. As it would turn out, you can do this in a lot of ways – you’ve chosen to be a musician (or maybe an Apple retailer, but that’s a heresy for another day, wink wink), but some people just go to work day to day, talking with their coworkers, building relationships – that’s mission too.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this lately (because I’m going to be one soon) and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s nothing that special about missionaries except that they chose to obey God’s COMMAND to “make disciples of all nations” (including their own) within a certain culture. And I’d suggest that your own culture (hometown, whatever) is just as much a mission field as Africa or Australia – America is becoming more secular than Latin America and Africa, I might add.
So yeah, I think that it depends on how you cut it – “purpose” is a really loaded word, and I’m not sure that “loving God” is as much a purpose as it is a choice … or is that heresy? I’m still not sure about this one, so feel free to slap me down with tons of scripture. I think “BEING” Christian MEANS doing Christian things, because a faith without works is dead. So since this isn’t my blog, I’m going to stop typing and go to church now …
I agree with you Greg in that, yes we are all different and from some of us it is hard to imagine how anyone else can be any other way or like anything other than what we do. I am a relational person as are you, and so to me the greatest gift God gives me, is His love, His presence, His friendship, and conversely the greatest gift I can give back to Him is the same. I understand though that to others, “getting busy” for God, doing God’s work,evangelism, is what energizes them and brings them closer to Him. He’s made us all different in His infinite wisdom, and I do believe He uses our differences to enrich us and the world around us.