Scared Off?
Theme of the Week: Warm Welcome or Cool Reception?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verses: Why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as "Don't handle! Don't taste! Don't Touch!"? (Colossians 2:20-21). Bonus Reading: Colossians 2:20-23
The church I pastor avoids presenting cultural values, traditions, and extra-biblical rules as if they're on par with Scripture. We let the Bible speak for itself. One day, while I was studying in my office, an agitated man I didn't recognize (we're a big church) barged in, insisting he needed to be baptized. Right now!
"What's the big hurry?" I asked. He was a new Christian, he said, had just landed a new job and wanted to be baptized before he moved away. I probed for more:
"I didn't want to come to your church. I only came because my wife and I were having problems, and a friend said it might help. I'm in the news business, what a lot of Christians call the 'liberal press.' I'd sit in the back and wait for you guys to start ripping on us. But you never did. You just kept preaching the Bible. It made sense. A couple of months ago, I gave God the steering wheel."
I gladly baptized him. But what would have happened if his first encounter had been with the politics, fences, and hoops of cultural Christianity? My guess: he'd have concluded, I'm the enemy. I'd better get out of here. Fast!
—Larry Osborne in A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
My Response: What "fences and hoops" might deter a visitor to my church?
Thought to Apply: The scope of who it is that God means to invite to the feast is not ours to define. We are not put in charge of the guest list. —Don Skinner (author)
Adapted from A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God (Multnomah, 2007) by permission.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integritymagazine.
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