I was fascinated today to watch two women and one man eating at Taco Bell. For over ten minutes the two women were engaged in a conversation with each other while the man talked to them. The problem was they weren’t listening to him. It was as if he wasn’t even there yet he talked as loud as they were talking. They just weren’t listening to him and he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept on talking.
I felt like I was watching the Christian Church trying to communicate to the world. The world is busy talking and the Church is talking but few are listening. We spend millions on evangelism with little result. In my home church in the past decade we have spent a quarter of a million dollars on evangelism and the attendance is the same or less than it was ten years ago. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I fear we keep doing it because we don’t know what else to do. But the world is not listening.
I know I should not speak of this unless I have a better idea. We are hungry for a better idea. It seems the number one thing on our prayer list is for God to inspire us with a better idea. We want so badly to proclaim the Good News. We want the world to know the joy of salvation. Could the problem be the world sees little joy in our midst? Could it be the Christian Church has become so involved in politics we have lost our primary mission? Could it be that our presentation of the Good News sounds like bad news? Just wondering.
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 7, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
rogerbothwell.org