Tuesday, March 11, 2014

It's always been revolutionary



Jim had a passion for God, a love for people, and a burden to communicate the gospel. But he wrestled with the question of how to bring the message of Christ into a setting that seemed so far from him. How could he help people see and embrace the truth when they had so little biblical understanding?

Even with all of the obstacles in front of him, Jim knew he had to try. So try he did! In fact, he went to great lengths to relate to their culture. Following the example of the apostle Paul, he took bold risks to “…become all things to all people….for the sake of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:22-23 NRSV).

What kinds of risks? For starters, he shaved his head right down to the skin - that is, except for the patch of hair he grew long. He gave up his familiar business attire and began to dress like them. He even changed his eating patterns and started to dine in the style of the ones he cared so much about. Further, he worked hard to learn their vocabulary, in the hopes that he would be able to effectively convey biblical teaching in their everyday street language. He read their papers, studied their ideas, and went out of his way to discover and build on whatever areas of common ground he had with them.

Jim didn’t do this all from a distance. No, he actually moved into their neighborhood. He lived close to them, became their friend, and spent extended periods of time talking with them, getting to know them, playing with their children - all of this in spite of their non-Christian lifestyle and in almost every case, their outright rejection of his message.

What did other church leaders think of all this? They mostly misunderstood, misrepresented, and even openly maligned him. Today, generations later, countless people from the neighborhoods he worked so hard to reach know and serve Jesus Christ as their Forgiver and Leader. Jim - or as he’s more widely know, James Hudson Taylor - is the man who more than a century ago gave up everything to build a ministry called China Inland Mission. (Taken from Building a Contagious Church by Mark Mittelberg).

Like Jim and the Apostle Paul, God is calling us to be a missional community for the curious in a culture that is increasingly un-Christian. We are called to be a people who are in the culture but not infected by the often-ungodly values of the culture. We can primarily understand the church in two ways. A “self preservation” church that defines success and a fulfilling of God’s mandate in our life as paying the light bill, filling the sanctuary, learning information about the Bible, feeling comfortable, and doing what we have always done. Or we can be a missional “community for the curious” that sees the mandate of Christ as truly impacting the culture for Jesus Christ. We are to go where the people are, open the resources of CrossWay Church to the community, and live out the transforming reality of Christ in our spheres of influence at work and in our neighborhoods.

Clearly Christ has called us to be missional, to take the necessary risk, to stretch, to pray, to be a church that is living and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to a desperately hurting world. To extend ourselves personally and corporately so that we can walk with people and impact them where they reside.

That is the revolutionary message of Jesus Christ and followers like James Hudson Taylor. It is living and presenting the world, sharing the truth of our Creator God in the culture. That is the path we are called to be on at CrossWay Church. It is the compelling revolutionary vision that God has called us to. A question each of us needs to wrestle with and embrace in our given context is: What does it look like for each of us to be like Jim bringing the revolutionary power of Jesus Christ to the broken and hurting community we live in and surround? The answer and application of that question has the potential to change everything for the cause of Christ.

On The Journey Together,
Jason Esposito 
Lead Pastor, CrossWay Church
www.crosswaygt.org

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