Community of Believers

Tonight was a very interesting date night for me and my wife. We had someone from our choir, Cindy Smith, come over and hang out with our kids while we went out. We had an awesome dinner and then went to a movie. At the movies we had one of our college students from church taking up tickets. After getting in we went into the theater to get a seat. We spotted the seats we wanted (3/4 of the way up in the stadium seating and almost perfectly centered). As we turned on the aisle and started to sit down we looked up to find 2 more choir members...husband and wife. We talked and laughed about how strange it was to see each other outside of church...but then, suddenly, we spotted another couple from church coming up to where we were. Once they saw us they came over and sat with us, as well. How strange, I thought, that we all chose to come to the same movie, at the same time, on the same day.

After we left the movie we went to Barnes & Noble for some cheesecake, fraps, and a book Jody had ordered. We placed our order and then turned to sit down at a table when I noticed another choir member from Immanuel grading papers at a table. How awesome is that!?!

I don't know why, but it is sometimes strange to see other believers outside of church. It's almost like we all live there on campus, withdrawn from the outside world and have no life outside of Sunday morning and Wednesday night. And, I believe, that we approach ministry that way. We totally withdraw (in theory) from the world that we proclaim we are trying to lead to salvation. We expect those we're trying to reach to conform to the proper church member before they have the "proper" relationship. We believe that if we keep doing what we're doing eventually it will have a different effect (that's the definition of insanity, by the way). We must engage the society we live in, we must be the influencers, and we must be real. How do we balance it all? As a team. As a community of believers we must change the current community. We have to love the lost.

I just feel that we don't truly get it. At least not yet. If we really understood how important it is, we would stop at nothing to see our towns and cities won to Christ. It wouldn't matter what songs we sang on Sunday morning. What would matter is that the music was relevant. It wouldn't matter if the sermon went a little long. What would matter is that the Word was proclaimed and lives were changed. It wouldn't matter that someone wore shorts and a tank top. What would matter is that they came and sat under the teaching of God's word. We can't expect to clean up the outside when there is no change on the inside. As a community of believers we must stop being about our own preferences and start acting on our convictions. Christ is bigger than a video announcement that is too "professional". There's more to our Savior than an old english hymn or a contemporary worship song. It's not about us, it's about him. When we make up our minds that we are willing to stop at nothing to impact the Kingdom for all eternity, that is when we'll finally see souls saved, lives changed, and families restored. Until then, I guess our community of believers will just continue to remain on the church campuses.