Born-Again Lazy? (Matthew 6:33)

The creators of xxxchurch.com, Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon, wrote Starving Jesus, a dialog about the offensive message of Jesus and how wrong the Church has it.

“The Chuch needs a good kick in the pants. We need to stop talking, meeting, deciding what’s next and get on with the business of evangelizing This country is the Holy Grail when it comes to evangelizing. We have the big fat First Amendment staring us in the face. The First Amendment guarantees us the right to offend in the name of Christ. So…who do you want to offend?

We are very blessed to have this faith in the United States, but we have grown soft on the truth. The Church has made certain subjects, places, and people offensive, and as a result, we do not talk about the offense. Or if we do, we condemn it in the name of Christ. Worldly offense can bear itself out in resentment, anger, and pride. It’s sin. We rarely dive into the world to deal with offense, instead preferring to bury it, hide it, run from it, and in extreme cases, protest or picket it.

As Christians, we ultimately look at our kids and scream back to the world who could care less, and we say, “Look what you’re doing to the kids!” as if they will suddenly have a moment and completely stop what they are doing. Offense must be met with truth, not with crazy, half-cocked personal opinions about what is right and what is wrong.

The word ‘offense’ has become the adjective that is used to define present-day Christianity. Offense has become a movement. We are not engaging truth with offense, we are using offense as a divining rod to find any given social problem and attack it. We look for the offense. We scrounge Scripture for its righteousness opposite, and off we go, emailing, calling, yelling, getting on TV, and basically letting the world know we ain’t gonna take it. Mad as hell, driven by self-righteous indignation. What a lovely picture we have painted for those looking for God.

The world has come to identify us by what we hate and what we are offended by, instead of what we love or why we love. We are offensive ones. Are we offending away from Christ or offending toward Him?”

The idea of the Kingdom of Heaven has blown my mind. It has revolutionized every ounce of my Christianity.

“This doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, and which plays so small a part in the Christian creeds, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought.” – H.G. Wells
It’s offensive. It’s revolutionary. It’s violent. It’s beautiful.

And it’s advancing.

What if Jesus didn’t come to start another religion? What is He came to start a revolution? Most of His message was delivered outdoors or in people’s homes; if He was in a religious edifice, He was stirring up trouble, upsetting the status quo, pissing people off and calling them “children of the devil.” Jesus only mentions the word “church” three times in the Gospels, as opposed to the numerous mentions of the Kingdom of Heaven. So, so, so many descriptions of the Kingdom of Heaven, how it is at hand, how it is what Christians are to seek first, how it is what Jesus meant to “Love God and love others.” You can’t do one without doing the other.

Outreach, loving others, whatever you call it, is something that we as a Body, at least as the Body of Christ at ODU, absolutely suck at. (For anyone about to scroll down to write an irate comment pointing out how darn cynical I am, don’t bother. I know.) Whether it is in my church or any respective campus ministry, the focus is, nine times out of ten, on discipleship, personal growth, issues that we sinners deal with. Don’t get me wrong, that’s awesome, as well as biblical.

No, the problem arises when we Christians who are born-again lazy (as Gross puts it) are so caught up in becoming better Christians, dealing with the rough, tough world we live in, we fall so in love with our own spirituality that we reach a point where we have a faith that says all the right things and believes all the right things but is dead, empty, void. The real faith is a faith that reaches out, that is outward-focused. I can cite countless authors that point this out: R. York Moore, Voss, Bell…but obviously, the most perfect example of this is Jesus. Jesus was bent on loving others and it cost Him His life. Can we believe in Him and not do the same?

What kind of mentality does the Church have?

“An ‘empire’ mentality is one which is governed by church growth. It says that the only projects into which it is worth channelling time or money are those that will grow the investing church. Churches governed by an empire mentality tend to see other churches as competition, and are often predominately inflexible and programme-oriented. An inevitable by-product of this approach to church is a self-serving attitude and an inward focus; protecting what already exists at the expense of that which is yet to be discovered. An overriding strategy of the empire-driven church is that of absorption.

A Kingdom mentality, on the other hand, is inherently outward focused, people-centred and naturally flexible. Motivated by a desire to see the oppressed set free, the Kingdom-focused church will give away that which God has given to it, seeking to bring God’s Kingdom to the area it is serving by working together with other churches to actively serve communities. A Kingdom focus results in a realisation of our obligation and commitment to the poor, the ‘have not’s’, and in a pursuit of the Kingdom, seeks to overthrow the powers that promote oppression, both spiritual and physical. A principle strategy of the Kingdom-focused church is that of dissemination.” – ServantBlog 7/6/06

Beautiful. This post rambled and didn’t make any sense. Maybe future ones will be more coherent.

Revolutionary literature pertaining to the Church probably isn’t something I need to be reading. Sorry, Shane.