Outsourcing the Way …

One of the toughest challenges church leaders have is that of imploring people to actually live out what they claim they believe. We work hard at discipling people so they can see others as Jesus sees them, and respond accordingly.

But that often isn’t the issue in the church today.

Sometimes, the challenge is for people to respond to what they actually do see. Not just from the guy holding the sign at the street corner, but in the life of the person sitting next to them “at church.”

I love a tweet I read recently. In just 140 characters, a Twitter friend related he and his young son saw a man who was hungry. His son suggested they feed the man. And that’s what they did.

Simple: they saw a need, and from compassion, they met the need.

That’s very different from the experience another man faced. He was a faithful follower of Christ who had fallen on hard times. No, those hard times did not come from either sinful or bad choices. They came in spite of his faith and his persistent efforts. A minister encouraged him to share an email with Christian friends sharing just a snapshot of what his needs were and simply asking them to join him in prayer. Here’s an actual clip of one response sent to that man from someone claiming to be both a Christian and a friend:

1) Don’t you think God knows your needs. Why do we need to know?
2) Why do you feel the need to tell your problems to your friends?
3) If you need to talk why not go to a church councilor [sic]?
4) If  you need food, go to a food bank.
5) If you need shelter, start looking for a rescue mission. (maybe you could minister at the  mission and get free room and board).
6) Maybe volunteer at a place you might want to work at and maybe they will hire you after they see your work.
You have lots of options. Better to use your energy taking care of yourself than talking about it with friends.“

Yes, the person responding did actually number his responses. And this person (who had no real understanding of the efforts the Christian in need had been taking each day) has taken a view too many have — outsourcing real Christlike compassion to some place other than the church. Instead of the body of Christ caring for one another as we see recorded in Acts, hungry people should be outsourced to food banks, homeless people should be outsourced to rescue missions, prayer requests should be supplied to God alone, and someone needing a friend should be outsourced to a counselor.

Surely, we wouldn’t want such challenged lives messing up our pretty churches, would we?

Yes, there are good services and resources people in need might be able to access, although not always. But access to governmental or private charity is no replacement for the love of Christ that should be the natural response of those who truly follow Christ. The Apostle John was abundantly clear on this subject:

“If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them. We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion — how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions,” 1 John 3:14-18.

Perhaps one of the reasons the church has been in decay for decades now is because we try to outsource the compassion of Christ, and the love of God, for someone other than the church to provide.

Imagine what might happen if we reversed that. Imagine what might happen if the church became known for displaying the love and compassion of Christ without reserve!

Instead of imagining it, perhaps it’s time we consistently do it.

What can you do to live a faith that doesn’t outsource the love and compassion of Christ?

Scotty