Posture

"The Tangible Kingdom" is the book I'm currently reading. The chapter I'm on right now is called 'Posture' so I thought I'd write about it since I'm highlighting pretty much the whole chapter save a few sentences here and there. It has really spoken to me and convicted me of some things in my life that need to change. It talks about how Jesus took on a posture of meeting people where they're at, like with the woman caught in adultery. He bent down beside her, showing he was there for her. He didn't stand up in her face and condemn her but rather offered forgiveness and a chance at a clean start by asking her to repent. He captured her heart first though, before He asked her to repent. The author goes on to say we need to know a person and have a relationship with them before we ask them to change their behavior. How different is that then what most people think in regard to going to church? How many people's first reaction is to go to church when they're hurting? How often do Christians stay in their little 'holy huddles' afraid to interact with the world around them? I know I'm especially guilty on this last charge. It's so easy to be around fellow believers and do Bible studies and hang out and eat lunch. All of those are good things but we also need to make an effort to befriend people outside of the church walls. Bring the gospel to them rather than bring them to church and let someone else bring the gospel from the pulpit.

How different would it looked if Christians walked with a posture of humility? If anyone had a reason to walk around with an arrogant attitude of 'I'm better than you are' it was Christ but instead He walked around with humility. It is so easy to look down upon others outside of our circles or outside society's mainstream. How hard it is to approach those who are different from us. I know at one of the last places I stayed they smoked a lot of weed. This made me pretty uncomfortable but at the same time I was almost happy that they felt comfortable enough around me to do that in front of me. They didn't feel a need to put on a mask around me because I was a Christian. Sometimes when you tell someone you're a Christian they don't feel that they can be themselves around you for fear of you judging them. Maybe if we just meet people where they are, they'll be more likely to be attracted to the message we bring.

The author also brought up the point of how in all our interactions, we know that words are not enough at that people interpret our body language as being louder than the words we're speaking. He then poses the question, "So why do we expect it to be different when we talk about God?" Do we really expect people to give us the time of day if we don't first have a relationship with them? Do we expect people to give their lives to Christ after having seen a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish on the back of our cars? "Oh, now I get it." Something like that? I used to be almost ashamed at saying I believed we should have a relationship with a person before we tried to share our beliefs with them. It seems like that was really getting a bad rap there for a while. Back in 2008 when I was last in New Zealand I specifically remember a minister saying something along the lines of how people who focused on relationship style ministry didn't have as many converts. That might be true in the short run, but I wonder how many people who are 'converted' from some mass evangelism strategy stay with the faith after the evangelizer leaves? Wouldn't they be more likely to grow in their faith if they had someone investing in their lives on a regular basis? Again, it comes back to the idea of evangelizing being like breathing, it should come naturally and flow out of regular conversations, not from handing someone a track and a smile with a "God bless you" attached for good measure. Even the mass evangelizers try to get in on this by telling the people about local churches to go to, I just wonder how many new converts actually end up going to those churches when they have no one taking them. Not many people go to other social events alone, why would we expect them to go to church alone?

I'm in the middle of the chapter now, and it hasn't said it yet but I expect it to say something about Jesus washing the apostles' feet and taking the posture of a servant. At least that's what kept coming to my mind as I was reading it. Serving is a much more attractive posture for a person than standing on a street corner shouting into a bull horn. But then I wonder if those people aren't on to something too. They may piss everyone off including myself, but weren't the old testament prophets somewhat similar to them? They just told everyone of impending doom and to repent of their ways and turn back to God. Pretty sure people didn't want to listen to them either; in fact many times kings or kings' aids would command them to leave their town and prophesy somewhere else. Of course, except in the case of Jonah many times the people of those days wouldn't change their ways either. All that to say, I think it's much more effective to be a servant to all rather than preaching at them about how wrong their actions are. I've been guilty of that myself quite a few times but am trying to work on it.

In college, a girl told me she wanted to come to Christ but had to get her life in order first. Even then, I remember telling her she had it backwards. We come to Christ first and His love compels us to change our hearts and our behavior. A lot of behavior that is sinful is more of a worship problem than anything else. A person doesn't generally commit adultery because he hates his wife, they commit adultery because they have failed to put God on the throne of their heart. A person doesn't steal just for the thrill of the adrenaline rush, they steal because they don't see how it dishonors God. A posture of kneeling before God is needed if we are to have the correct posture towards the world around us. If we don't get that part right than we can't expect to put others ahead of our own interests. As a single guy, I find it incredibly difficult to put other's needs ahead of my own. Even if I was married and had a family, I just don't think that is something that comes easily or naturally for that matter. Most of the time I'm not even aware that I'm putting my needs ahead of others, it just comes naturally. It takes some real thought to even get to the point of thinking what is best for others instead of what is best to serve your own needs. It's definitely a learning curve.

Well, I need to read the rest of the chapter, maybe I'll write more when I finish the chapter or the book as a whole.