Outreach

We believe that perhaps the most urgent challenge facing the church in America is to re-capture a sense of mission.  The word “mission” itself literally means “to send.”  We must regain a deep conviction that as the church we are sent into the world around us with the truth of God and the love of God, in order to bring renewal through faith in Jesus Christ.   Growing up in what was once a fairly Christian culture, most Christians in America have developed an expectation that the world will come to the church.  That is how we tend to think outreach normally occurs.  We try to get the world to join us, primarily during our Sunday worship services.  But as the world around us has become increasingly unchurched and unfamiliar with the Christian faith, it has become less and less interested in coming to the church.  In response many churches have tried to change their worship services to make them more and more appealing to those outside the church.  

We want our worship services to be understandable to those outside the church, and we certainly welcome anyone who wants to join us for worship.  We want to avoid "insider" talk and any condescending comments about those who do not share our beliefs or lifestyle.  Indeed, we want to create an atmosphere in all of our church activities in which the seeker and skeptic can explore the Christian faith openly.  But we think the whole notion of changing the essence of our worship services in an attempt to attract the world confuses worship and outreach, and reverses the biblical order of things.  We do not think this approach is best either for the church or the world, or likely to be very effective in terms of outreach in the years to come.  In the Bible, we are not encouraged to wait for the world to come to the church.  Instead we are taught that the church is sent into the world.  God did not wait for us to come to him.  In love he sent his Son to us.  Jesus is described as a shepherd who goes out looking for lost sheep (Matthew 18:12; Luke 19:10).  As he was sent into the world by the Father, so too we are sent into the world by him (John 20:21).  The church is explicitly commanded by Jesus to go into the world to make disciples (Matthew 28:19).  To use another biblical image, harvesting occurs in the field, not in the barn (Matthew 9:37).  

For these reasons we believe that while worship, growth, and fellowship occur primarily in the church, outreach occurs primarily, though not exclusively, in the world.  Therefore, the members of our church are encouraged to be active in the world, not to withdraw from the world by forming an entirely separate Christian sub-culture.  We want to develop genuine relationships with those who are outside the church.  We want to be involved in our communities and help others address the practical problems that we are all facing in this broken world.  As a church community, we want to develop creative ways to go to the world with the message of Jesus Christ, and to show the love of Jesus Christ by our actions and service.