There is a mission field every bit as foreign and distant from our mainline world as the one our faithful progenitors sought after in their train cars on their trips out west and to the middle of this country early on in the history of our American home missions society. The difference now is that the mission field is no longer geographically distant. Our current mission field is just as distant but in an ideological expanse as far and wide as the plains of the mid west or as endless as the sky of montana must have seemed to those who came before us.
Our call to mission and sharing the Gospel remains and the logistical needs are still there. How do we reach these distant people? They are far from where we are and we must do more than simply shout out from where we are and invite them to come. In fact, the distance is so great that often times our best efforts seem to them as little more than a few crazy people waving their arms and shouting incomprensible things from a distance.
I have dear beloved friends who cannot understand why I don't use more Scripture in my personal facebook page. They say, Doug you are a man of God, why don't you use all that is available to you to spread the Gospel? My response often includes asking them what they think the gospel is? Is quoting Scripture often the only way to share the Gospel? Sadly these discussions end the way most seem to in our current times, everyone assuming the extreme. In other words, if my update status are not at least 50% Scripture I am not sharing the Gospel. When I refuse to constantly quote Scripture I am not speaking against the power of the word of God. I know it is necessary for faith in Christ to hear, read and engage with Scripture. So the issue is not as simple as, use Scripture in Facebook and if you don't you're not sharing the Gospel. I would rather say, choose wisely before presenting the Word of God as hitting someone over the head with Scripture is just as bad as not using it at all.
Sadly, once again, since we live in extremes now, it seems that many in mainline churches are now almost afraid or apologetic about sharing Scripture with the world. I think our problem with growth in mainline denominations isn't that we have no message, or that the message is now irrelevant. The problem is more an issue of our own walk with Christ. How often do we look to culture to help us reach out to the world? How often do we follow this method, or that method, in an endless self help cycle that does little more than perpetuate itself and pay ever growing royalties to the author of the method that is "in". the result is that many of us feel we are bending over backwards for "these" people and they just don't come!
Jesus reminded us that in order to enter the kingdom we must be born again. (John 3:1-21) We now seem to have taken that to mean, we must help the unbelievers come to Christ so they repent and are born again. What I find most interesting about our understanding of being born again is that we seem to miss the fact that Jesus was not talking to an unbeliever about faith in the John passage. Nicodemus was not a "seeker" who was exploring church for the first time. Nicodemus is us, the believer, the one who is honestly doing her/his best to follow God. Some of us Christians try to explain this story as it applies to us away by saying Nicodemus was a pharisee therefore not a Christian, so an unbeliever. I wish I had more time to discuss how wrong that escapist perception is, the Pharisees and Sadducees were the church people, they knew God and were making sure this crazy Jesus person would not lead people astray!
So, Jesus was talking to a knowledgeable faithful person about the way in which he was receiving the Gospel (the Good News). Paul helped us to understand this encounter in a deeper way when he reminded us that we must die so that we may find life and life abundantly. (Galatians 2:20)
Are you willing to let the old you die? Jesus is not talking here about the old, non-christian you, some of us don't even have an old non Christian self if we've been in church all our life! What JESUS is asking is whether we have the willingness to let the christian self we know and love, die for the sake of the gospel! I saw a protest sigh some time ago that has illustrated this very thing for me; "I have contemplated the fact that I may be wrong, have you?" Are you willing to explore your own faith in an honest way to separate the you from the Gospel? As I said before, our problem as mainline churches isn't that our message is no longer life Transforming or relevant. I Think a big part of our problem is that we are often unwilling to consider that the way we know how to share the gospel may just now be wrong. The Gospel has not changed, it has not become irrelevant or obsolete. But the way we share the Good News may have become irrelevant and/or obsolete. This distinction is fundamental as we tend to confuse the questioning of the methods with the questioning of the truth that is so evident in the word of God. It would do us all good to spend time re-encountering that which is life Transforming, and life giving in the Gospel for ourselves. So get back into Scripture, read it, engage with it! After all, the words of your message will be much more effective if the other person can "hear" your love for what you are sharing.
So the mission field is just as distant now as it was one hundred years ago. The difference is that now, in order to share the Gospel with the world our journey needs to begin with a trip deep within so we may fall in love all over again. Only then will we be able to help the world discover the relevance and life giving power of the Gospel once again.
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