When the back bone goes the body shrinks!

I just finished reading Mitch Albom’s book Have A Little Faith. It is an interesting story of his faith journey. In the book I was challenged by the two lives, one a rabbi the other an inner city pastor. What struck me, and what struck Albom was how these two men changed so many people’s lives because of relationship. This subject also affected me some because I am also reading John Maxwell’s, Relationships 101 What Every Leader Needs to Know. Relationship, as far as leadership goes, has been on my mind a lot. As I read Albom it struck me that relationship was the key to both the Rabbi and the Pastor. What I noticed was the simple fact that they made time for everyone no matter what was happening around them. They saw their call more important than their own needs. They put others in front of themselves.

This is something I honestly struggle with. At times I am impatient and focused on my task opposed to focusing on the people I am doing it for or even forget about the greater call, the people God has called me to. There are time when I don’t want to go to the dirty or smelly places. I don’t want to go to the dangerous spots. I put myself before those I need to reach. More than that, though, these two spiritual leaders taught me about proximity. Jesus placed himself in the disciple’s lives. Jesus was present in the community. I want to be that. I want to do that. I do not want to be self seeking but follow the example Jesus has set out for me.

When I think of Pastors in my own community, the ones that seem to be affective, I notice a similarity. They all have proximity. I always see Brian Horrobin walking, running, biking around town. He seems to know everyone. His church is open for tons of community events. He even won citizen of the year. That is proximity. I think of Richard Vander Vaart who has always made time for me and my wife. He knows everyone too! It might be a Dutch thing, not sure but I think it has to do with proximity. Riding around with police, being present in the community, these are the things that change people’s lives.

In Albom’s book the Rabbi is always telling stories. When Albom asked the Rabbi how do you do what you do when no one seems to care the rabbi just told a simple story of a sales man who every day would go to the same house and get the door slammed in his face. Finally, one day he goes and the guy says stop coming by here, spits in the sales man’s face and slams the door. The sales man takes out a hanky and simple says, “It must be raining”. People may reject you because of the truth you proclaim but that does not change the way God views them. He loves them and wants them in relationship with Him. When they spit in Jesus face Jesus didn’t decide, ‘do you know what I don’t need to do this cross thing for a bunch of people who spit on me’. Instead, Jesus turns the other check and lets them spit on that one too. He went to the cross any way.

This rabbi would call everyone in his church every week, if he didn’t see them in person already. The Pastor in inner city Detroit invited drug addicts to sleep in his church and even his home. The rabbi was with the same church for six decades. The Pastor, even when funding disappeared, continued to preserver through the hard times because that is where God called him to be, with the down and out. If we lose proximity we lose the back bone of ministry and the church. When the back bone goes the body shrinks!

A Personal Touch

I was thinking about outreach today. This might have been because I watched a short little video on a certain type. I thought about all those times I have received flyers in the mail where it shows angels throwing people into the fires of Hell. Boy o’ boy do those make me feel compelled to join the ‘Christian cause’.

This particular clip talked about mailing out tracks. Now I am not saying this is a bad thing by any sorts BUT if this is the sole outreach strategy of your church there are some flaws in your thinking. I am sure that these handy dandy pamphlets reach people. There is no argument there. The issue is, when we sacrifice our actual reaching out for pamphlets we sacrifice a large part of our Christian mandate.

When I look at the life of Jesus I see someone whose life was dedicated to reaching people. Whether it is the disciples that followed him or the people who heard his sermons, there was this person to person connection. When I look how Jesus not only spoke to Zacchaeus but ate and fellowshipped with him I see a personal faith. It would have been easy for Jesus to have written down on Papyrus his Good News to the world and handed it out on the streets. Instead he walked and talked with the people. He spoke to the dirty and marginalize. He discussed and debated with the rich an educated. Jesus embodied the Good News.

The Apostle Paul, I am sure, could have stood on the corner and preach in Athens a second time but he realized it didn't work so well the first. He had to changed tactics. As Paul walked through the market he took in the culture, he examined his surroundings. The most important thing he did was go to where the people were. Paul went to the hangout spot where all the thinkers, philosophers and spiritual leaders met to discuss. Paul knew from his previous experience that this was the way to go. Paul learned the culture and used it to his advantage in speaking to the people. Paul personally took the personal Saviour to the people.

We live in a culture that reads less and less every year. That is why advertisers use certain words and certain fonts with certain cheesie exploding, spiky, yellow things to get their point across. There are some people out there who do read stuff from the mail… I am not one of them.

Look at other religions. Mormonism is growing like crazy and it is not because their belief system makes sense. They are present in the community, they invite themselves to your home, they will talk with anyone and they own hotels... I am not saying that we need to copy the Mormon philosophy on outreach; where the Church has sacrificed the personal touch for websites and handouts we need to find our way back to the Jesus method.

Judaism takes from the words of Moses in Leviticus 19:18 to love your neighbours. This is echoed by Jesus in Matthew 19 and 22. Jesus also called us to "go". These are commands that call for an action, a personal action.

With all the screwed up things that are being portrayed as 'Christian' on TV and the net the world needs to see that 'Christians' are not all crazy. We don't all picket at PRIDE parades’ or blow up abortion clinics. People need to know that we are not all money grabbers, schemers, pedophiles, obnoxious and sell special holy water for a donation to our ministry. If every Bible believing Christ would simple be the hands and feet of Christ we could break the stigmas that surround the faith. It is time to combine our Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy and reach people with the Good News of Christ just as Jesus and the apostle Paul did: With a personal touch.