disciples.

Theme around my life this week has been how we, as Christians, care for people in our lives.  It's come at me from many different directions and even some unexpected places.

I finished Jenn Hatmaker's study "Interrupted" this morning ... and here are some thoughts that have circled my mind and heart:

• Did you choose to attend your church because of how it meets your needs or are you there because you are on board with its mission in your city?
• "The church is one of the few organizations in the world that does not exist for the benefit of its members.  The church exists because God, in his infinite wisdom and infinite mercy, chose the church as his instrument to make know HIS manifold wisdom in the world."  - Ed Stetzer
• When believers sequester from culture, it's like recruiting a group of traveling salesmen and discovering all they do it stay together at the office.
• Church must not be the goal of the gospel anymore ... church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us, and be like us as we are following the way of Christ."  - Halter and Smay
• Love has won infinitely more converts than theology.  The firsts believers were drawn to Christ's mercy way before they understood His divinity.
• Speak the language of the people you're sent to; that's pretty much it.  When you can, value what they value, enjoy what they enjoy, do where they might go, think like they might think.  Connect with them on their terms, not yours.

Paul says (in I Corinthians 9:23-25):
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! (The Msg)

Our problem really isn't knowing what to do.  It's CHOOSING to live like with those outside the church, outside our comfort zone, outside our little window of people like us.  And it's not even living life with people not like us ... one of the people I most enjoy hanging out with is a great person and a great friend, but doesn't have a relationship with Christ. 
We had Dr. Robert Campbell come speak to the GHSU students at Faith in Practice yesterday.  He came to know Christ as a college student and His life was so changed by the gospel that he did his residency with a faith based clinic in Memphis and came to Augusta following his residency to start a similar clinic here (the #2 city out of 58 major metropolitan areas for health care needs in the poor). 

He mentioned a Family Practice study that reported that devout Christians were less likely to help those with health care needs than nonbelievers.  Wait ... what?  Really??!!  Really!!  What is wrong with us? 

The solution, he proposed is that we need to be disciples.  If we are disciples, then we FOLLOW Christ, the Christ who healed.  The Christ who listened.  The Christ who poured out His life for those in need.  The Christ who was moved with compassion.  The Christ who tells us what we do for the least of them, we do for Him.

Tracy Thompson from Mercy Health spoke to my Athens nurses on Monday.
She reminded us that in this economy, the patients who sit in her waiting room are just like us, except they have no insurance.  And yet, somehow, we make them "different" from us ... we forget that there but for the grace of God go WE ... and we get busy with out own stuff.  Good stuff.  But we forget the difference an hour of our time, a little of our money, a bit of our skill could make.

We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you, not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well. (1 Thes 2:8)

It's time we stop talking about the poor and stop organizing campaigns to meet global needs and just look around us and invite people into our lives where the beauty of the gospel can flow from relationship to relationship.  And we can be the church God intended us to be.