I recently read an interesting article titled, "Why You're Not Reaching the Unchurched." I found the article very insightful and challenging. Insightful because churches today tend to think that "tweaking" some element of their worship will draw in a large crowd of unchurched people. However, unchurched people do not care if you have the newest and "coolest" things at your disposal. What they are looking for is a simple invitation. I found it challenging because it seems that, at times, one of the hardest things for us Christians to do is to invite a friend, co-worker, family member or acquaintance to church.
Why is this the case? What is it about asking someone to join you at church that is so difficult? Several months ago I preached a sermon about Jesus calling the first disciples in Luke 5. Read the story if you haven't before. But the part that stuck out in my mind was when Peter realized who Jesus was. Peter was so ashamed of the sin in his life that he asks Jesus to leave him. Jesus responds with a phrase that should resonate in our hearts today. He says, "Don't be afraid..." Don't be afraid? Jesus knew that one of the greatest barriers to humanity being mobilized to action for the Kingdom of God is the fear that lies in each of us. A fear that refuses to allow us to move forward until we allow Jesus' words to ring truth inside of us, "Don't be afraid." Once the fear is removed then we, as followers of Christ, will leave everything to follow Jesus.
We see Jesus again address fear in the story of Jairus' daughter in Mark 5: 21-43. Jairus's daughter is sick and so he runs to find Jesus knowing that if Jesus gets involved then there is a good chance that his daughter will be healed. Jairus had enough faith to begin searching for Jesus. However, when Jairus finds Jesus and they begin walking back to the house where his daughter lies sick, Jesus is distracted by a sudden draining of his power. He begins questioning the crowd asking, "who touched me?" Finally a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years reveals herself and proclaims that it was her who touched Jesus. She had a faith that told her that if she just touched the cloak of Jesus then she would be healed. Jesus tells the woman that it was her faith that healed her.
Meanwhile, Jairus is looking the scene over thinking to himself, my daughter is dying. And right at that moment Jairus receives the information he was hoping to avoid, "your daughter is dead." I can only imagine the range of emotions going through Jairus at this moment. Jesus, seeing the emotion bursting off Jairus' face, turns and says, "Don't be afraid, just believe."
Our question remains. Why is it so hard to invite the people we know to church? I would guess that with a lot of us there is a fear in asking a person to church or sharing our faith. There is a fear that our invitation will be rejected. There is a fear that we may be looked at as ridiculous for our faith. This fear is what holds us back from helping our church grow. As the article put it, churches that grow are less concerned about the style of music or the way things look. Maybe this matters a little. However, growing churches have people in them who are inviting their friends to church. They are filled with people who have a fear inside them and let the words of Christ push that fear into irrelevancy. They hear Jesus say, "Don't be afraid, just believe."
If we can teach this to the people in our churches then it would go a long way in helping us reach generations of unchurched people for the Jesus.
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