Terribly Poetic

Here’s a thought for Friday from Kim Reid, church planter with The Open Door in Montreal,

 “What do you do when you run into christians who just don’t get it? Christians who just want to get together and be “ministered to”. Christians who have very little if any contact with the real world. Jesus told us to go into the world and make disciples. The only real way to do this is to go into the world and BE a disciple. To enter your community/culture with the same grace, compassion and mercy that Jesus did. I find it disheartening that so many christians think the only contact they should have with “the world” is to preach at them. An interesting idea since Jesus didn’t make it a rule to do that. There is no record that He said anything to Zaccheus that even remotely could be construed as “preaching”. Jesus ate with him and loved him. Interesting that we feel the need to add to Jesus example. God has asked us to feed the poor far more than he has asked us to preach, and yet we prefer to preach, and even use this as a reason not to feed the poor,… unless we can preach at them. Much of the church is over-fed and lazy and make excuses for not serving the unlovely. I met with a group of pastors this morning. One asked, “Is it our job to tell church people they don’t get Jesus’ message?” My answer to this was, “if christians are not doing the things that Jesus told us to, regarding the people he died for(that is everyone), ie. feeding the poor and taking care of those less fortunate, then they are “other than” christian. It is time they knew it.” christians who sit back, demand to be fed and don’t do anything to love the world need to consider their “christian-ness”. Who does God say “I never knew you” to? They are people who thought their actions spoke loudly of God,….. but in the end, only spoke of religiosity. Micheal Frost has suggested that Jesus would never be allowed membership in most of our churches,… interesting.”