"Therefore go..."

For those of you who browsed my blog a while ago you may have noticed that on my "Currently Reading" section I had posted Vaughan Roberts' book 'Distinctives'. The book did not sustain my interest although generally I liked and agreed with the concept of each chapter. However, the other day I was flicking idly through it when I came across a small paragraph which seemed to click in to place with a lot of my recent thinking. The chapter title is, "Certainty in a world in which everything is relative" in which Roberts explores our response to the Great Commission set by Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20)

Here Roberts makes what I found to be a very acute observation of church evangelism.

"It is tempting to respond to that pressure by limiting our evangelism to the 'Christianized' - those who have a church background but have drifted away from church activities. That, in effect, is what most churches have done. Evangelism means inviting those on the fringe of church life to attend an event in our building. We have turned the 'go' of Jesus' Great Commission in to a 'come', and we interpret the 'all nations' as 'those like us'." (p.85)

How right he is. It would seem that sometimes in a desperate attempt to prove our evangelistic capablities we are tempted to reach out soley or mainly to those on the periphory of church life. Why is this? Perhaps it is because we know they are already familiar with the gospel and we can skip over explaining 'the basics'. Perhaps it is because they are less likely to put up a resistance to hearing the message and we can appeal to their already-Christianized nature. Let me be clear that it is important that we should continue to reach those on the edges of our church as they are no less important. However, if we are to be following the Great Commission as it was given then we must be going out before we start inviting people in. The word 'mission' translates from Latin roots meaning 'to send'. Therefore the Great Commission was not a command to invite others to our church but to take the church to the community and the nation.

As Roberts points out very few people in Britain are actually church-goers now compared to the last century. Church is an unfamiliar, uncomfortable place and many would rather not darken our doors. Why then is it that we expect them to come to our place of worship to hear the gospel? How ineffective waiting around inside the church may prove to be if this our only strategy for mission and evangelism.

All of this struck a chord with me because of the aforementioned challenge from Luke, where the disciples went out to the place Jesus sent them to catch fish. Jesus did not say, 'Sit about in the boat just here and I'll herd the fish over to you'. No. Jesus said, 'Get out there - I know you don't think it's going to be productive, it's not a likely place for a catch, but get out there!'. If we followed such a command with even greater faith, we truly could be 'fishers of men'. We cannot simply wait in our comfort zone and expect Jesus to send the nation to our doors. No. We must go to the empty places, or indeed the places where there are so many other destructive pressures that there hardly seems to be room for the gospel. If we go out, commissioned by Jesus, we need not fear that our efforts will be fruitless. The fishermen were sceptical yet Jesus displayed his power despite their doubts. How much more could Jesus do if we went out, encouraged by such a message and inspired by such a commission?

Roberts, V. (2005) Distinctives. Milton Keynes. Authentic Media.