In my completely informal and non scientific study of people I know and work with and have come in contact with who have no church affiliation, poll data reveals the following troubling “fact”:

Most people have never been invited to church.

In retrospect this isn’t that surprising, because I haven’t invited most of these people to church, so why would I assume that someone else had? And I’m a pastor, for pete’s sake.

I can understand why this happens. You don’t want to come across as that pushy church guy, so you don’t ever bring it up. Your church is kind of weird, and the pastor makes really terrible puns, and he sometimes still likes to make everyone hold hands in the service. Also, we emerging folk like to point out that the worship service is not the whole of church, and we should best de-emphasize the worship gathering at every opportunity. Mr. Gallant is going to be there, and he’s still ticked off that you don’t use the King James anymore, and if he finds out that there is someone new there he’s going to want to know where they stand on seven day creation. And if your friend is single then Mrs. Klassen is already going to have them mated to one of the other singles. Altogether, a negative experience that is best avoided.

At least those are the excuses I’ve used. Maybe yours are different.

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m not going to make peoples’ decisions for them anymore. Church is still weird. I often make bad jokes. There are odd people there and people who don’t always have the best social skills, and we do strange stuff. Some of our language is different, but that’s us and that’s church. I figure people like to be invited to stuff. Even if they have no interest in ever actually going, people like to be included. It’s a way that we tell people we care about them. We ask them to participate in stuff we like and are passionate about. We share good news.

So, throwing caution to the wind, here goes…

I love Jesus, and I think that he is good news for the world, and because I love Jesus, I try to love the things Jesus loved, and one of those things is the Church. It’s weird and messed up and often wrong, but that’s who we are. Anyway, you wanna come to a church service with me? It’s going to be different and possibly uncomfortable, but it’s better than anything that’s on T.V. on Sunday mornings.

And we can go to Wendy’s after. Promise.

The War Room – Warren Kinsella

Well I finished The War Room. It was an entertaining read: very informative on the inner view of the world of politics. It would be easy to be callous and cynical about the political process, but what prevented that for me was Kinsella’s personality. I believe that he cares deeply about people and the society we’re creating, and that caring has led him to politics. This doesn’t change the fact that he enjoys a good scrap and the political field is one of the few areas where it’s still kosher to engage in them, but the book was unexpectedly inspirational. The War Room is, at its heart, a book about influencing people; helping them to agree with your position and to reject that of your opponent. Wins and losses are measured in votes and polls. The church is also about influencing people, although our wins and losses are measured in obedience and faithfulness, and we’re not battling ideas, but pointing to a person and a way of being that is good news.

It’s weird, the thing that had the deepest and most complete impact on the way I think and feel about evangelism wasn’t a sermon or a Bible study or an evangelism course, but a short story by a professing atheist. A few years back I was touring a one act play I had written and we ended up taking a break at a mall in Fredericton, N.B. I headed straight to the Chapters and found a collection of short stories called Speaking With the Angels. Nick Hornby put the book together with contributions from people like Roddy Doyle, Helen Fielding, Irvine Welsh, and others to raise money for a school for autistic children his son attends in London. Anyway, Hornby included his own story called NippleJesus.

NippleJesus is about a regular guy, mildly red-necked, perhaps (is it possible for the British to be rednecks?) who quits his job at as a bouncer and takes a job as a security guard in an art gallery. His first detail is to guard a piece that has been placed in a closed room that is marked as containing potentially offensive material. He walks into this room to find a huge mosaic depicting the crucified Jesus which, while beautiful, is made up completely of pictures clipped from pornographic magazines depicting female breasts.

“You know those pictures that are made up completely from dots? Well thats how this Jesus picture was done, except all the dots are nipples. And thats what the pictures called – NippleJesus.” (p. 100)

After first hating the picture, the guard meets the artist and her family and begins to feel an appreciation for the picture. He defends it to his wife. He argues with the people and the politicians who call it obscene. He gets personally involved with NippleJesus and begins to feels attached to it. He tries to explain how this happened:

“If I’d just read about NippleJesus in the paper, or seen it on the news, I’d have thought it was wrong, no question. Sick. Stupid. Waste of taxpayers money. (And you always say that even if you’ve got no idea if taxpayers pay for it or not, whatever it is, don’t you.) And I’d never have thought of it again, probably. But it’s more complicated when you actually stand beside it all day. And I still don’t know what I think of it, really, but what’s so great about the nutter and the kinky vicar and all the other people who came to have a look that first morning is that they make up your mind for you about whose side you’re on. I’m not on theirs, that’s for sure, and the longer I spend with these wankers the more I hate them. It’s so simple, really. The nice ones like the picture, and they get it, and they have a look at how it’s done, but that’s not why their staring; the horrible ones come in, gaze for hour at the tits, moan to each other (or, if they’re really mad, to themselves)… You don’t need to work out what you think. You just need to have a look at what the other people think. And if you don’t like the look of them, then think the opposite.” (p. 108 – 109)

It sounds a little like this “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12) Rather than information or policies or positions, people are basing their decisions on whether or not they want to be like person x or person y. As we present what we we believe to be a better way to live and a better kingdom to pledge allegiance to, are we people worthy of emulation, or are we making people’s minds up for them? I think that if people get to know Jesus, they want to be like him. The ability of those around us to know Jesus depends heavily upon our knowing and imitating Jesus.

It’s that simple and it’s that difficult.