Backyard Missionaries

I get World Magazine (I highly recommend it. It's like a conservative Christian Time magazine) twice a month. I was intrigued by an article entitled "Mission To Metropolis" (Feb. 14, 2009, page 61). The article is about Eric Metaxas who has set up a ministry to reach America’s cultural elites. He makes a statement in the article that is profound. “We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that, simply because they live in America and speak English, these cultural elites have heard the gospel already and have rejected it. If the gospel has not been translated into a language that they understand, and if it has not been brought to them by people with whom they have some cultural affinity, they have not heard it.” Isn’t that statement true no matter what people group we are talking about?

Have you ever noticed that the longer we are in Christ, we become less and less able to speak to those who are different from us? That, of course, is the enemy of evangelism. We are no longer missionaries in our own country, but saints inside the camp. We become more and more separated from those outside the camp, until we slowly begin to think of them as a hostile “other,” rather than broken and exiled parts of our own selves, whom we are commanded by God to heal and restore. How do we get to the point that we have forgotten what it is like to be missionaries in our own backyard? It might be because we no longer know many people who don’t know Jesus. I am guilty of this. When you are involved in ministry it is easy to become suffocated by the saints, how about you? Let’s work on getting out of this!

I was asked a while back to help a church staff contextualize the gospel into their culture. That question really means -- “How can you help us be better missionaries in our culture?” The answer to that question is -- “What are the unsaved people like where you live, and who are you?”

Who are you:

• educational level
• blue or white collar
• income level
• race
• sex
• ethnenticy
• sports fan
• fisherman
• hunter
• career woman
• stay at home mom
• etc.

We need to know who we are because we all tend to hang out with people like us, which is no crime, it is just who we are.

What are they like:

• what do they read
• what do they watch
• where do they hang out
• what is important to them

and then the rest of what I already mentioned about you?

If you want to become a better missionary to the culture you live in, get involved with that culture! That culture is not inside the four walls of a church building on Sunday morning.

Eric reminds us that, “We are sinners, too, in need of God’s grace. Or did we think we could get into heaven simply by not watching HBO?” We all need to step up with compassion. Jesus did not come into the world to condem it, but to save it. We will become top notch missionaries in this culture when we have the eyes of Jesus that can see every person with His unconditional love!

How about if we try relating to and loving someone this month whom we did not love before? Will you accept the challenge? Let me know how it comes out.