Rob Bell 2

This question about whether or not our church would be missed is one, like Joyce said, continues to haunt me. (See previous post) It haunts me because I find myself having to try and find that one person that it would affect. This is not a question about those people who have come to our churches, but rather one about those who will never enter our churches. Would they miss us if we were gone? I find it disturbing that the concept that many people have in our churches today (remember this is blog, thus many gereralities will occur) that unless there is a payoff (someone will come to our church or Christ) that we shouldn't do some things. I've been in enough church board meetings over the years to hear the discussions about cutting out a program, because it's not bringing anyone to our church. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind when he demonstrated love. Yeah, of course he wanted people to believe in him, but he knew that many wouldn't yet he demonstrated love for them anyway. This question goes all the way back to the garden when God made man and women in His image. We are to love people simply because they are made in God's image. Period. We are not to love them so they will attend our church or more harshly, so they will know Christ (though that would be great) The question goes to that heart of what are we doing in our communities to simply say that we love mankind and we want to alleviate some of the pain and suffering that people are dealing with. Would my community miss our church? I would say no except a few parents of some kids that are brought in on the vans each week. Do I negate those, by no means, but shouldn't there be an outcry by our communites that we left. If a large employer were to leave there would be because that employer pays the salaries of those who live here. If they leave the people suffer. If our church leaves, do the people suffer? I don't think they do any more than they already do simply because we are not in the practice of alleviating that suffering for the community. Because we are not in it. We tend to be more concerned with our needs in our church community than those needs outside of it. On the other side there are some churches in this community that would be greatly missed by others. A couple of them serve several thousand meals a year to people who cannot afford them for one reason or another. One has a clothes closet to help meet the needs of those who need some sort of clothing and I'm sure that there are a few others out there doing things that I don't know of. Unfortunately, many churches are so caught up in this mentality of do something to get something or do nothing because we need to take care of ourselves that they forget everyone else. Some day I would love to see some church decide to take all the money they would raise for their new building and instead use it to pay for people's gas bill one winter, or make sure their kids have enough to eat or help out the struggling single parents or you name it and not expect them to come to their church because of it. I guess my feeling is that the church needs to begin to dispurse grace as much as it counts on it. The gospel that Jesus preached/preaches is one that is fairly straight forward. We are to love God and love others. Jesus confirmed this as our message. What does that love look like? Love by definition is not selfish nor self seeking it's other's focused. Is that the definition that our churches are taking? I think that if it were then we would see a lot more of that love being poured out on the people in our communites that they would be devistated that we closed our doors. On a side note: we now have three churches for sale in town and not a peep has been heard from two of them and the other one decided to publish an article in the paper about it, but I have yet to hear anyone who doesn't attend upset. God help us!