Worship Convergence

Go Make All February 2, 2014

A few years ago, I attended a 4 day Christian festival. While in line at the shower house one morning around 6am, the gentleman ahead of me began to tell of a young lady who’d started attending church. When she declared that she was interested in membership, she was informed that she would have to change her ways of clothing and accessorizing. It seems the lady was one of those “biker/leather/dog collar” kind of girls. Distraught at the judgment, the lady hadn’t returned or attended any other church.

Matthew 28:19  – Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…

Luke 9:31-32  – “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners…

GO MAKE ALL. The three keywords of the Great Commission. Not “plan to attract a key demographic.” The only target demographic a church should have is those who know they are sinners. Old or young, rich or poor, married or single, barren or fertile, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, middle-eastern, white collar, blue collar, or dog collar – if they know they are a sinner, they are to be welcomed with open arms.

Acts 11:1-3 – Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God. But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. “You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said.

Acts 11:12-18 – The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’ “As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with[e] water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’  And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”

In the first 10 chapters of Acts, the people believed they were only supposed to preach to and fellowship with each other and their Jewish peers. Acts 11 shows the error of the early church’s ways, ways to which modern church seems to be returning. Many churches are citing “Acts 2” as their model for ministry, but Acts 2 is merely the statistical growth of a community. These churches design services, classes, and events to attract certain types of people, as I’ve noted in earlier entries, according to some pastors, “a thriving church on paper has more christenings than funerals per year. (We have to) attract and incorporate young adults.” Those who don’t mind being considered a second class citizen might stay, but others, like the young lady mentioned above, make a swift and decisive exit. Knowing that you are a sinner does not equal believing you are worth less than others, but churches are treating certain types of people as if that is true. Church isn’t for one type of person. Standing in a crowd of teen sinners, biker sinners, preppy sinners, poor sinners, middle class sinners, hipster sinners, black sinners, white sinners, old sinners, young sinners, and just about any other sinner you can think of, you feel what the Body is. Early Acts doesn’t even begin to cover who can come.

Less inclined to “go” they seek to attract, pulling away from “all” in favor of key demographics, at least modern churches haven’t entirely abandoned the Great Commission: there’s still “make disciples.” They are making disciples of some, aren’t they? Or are they?

Luke 8:11-14  The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

Are these churches truly the body of Christ, or demons stripping the Word’s truth from the hearts of those desiring discipleship? Will their members, in the long run, be shown as rootless, so worried by statistical and worldly successes that they never conquer the flaws of Acts 2 and the early church? Or will they become those in the crown of life, blessed for enduring great trials, unconditional disciples whose strength comes from their love for God. Will they take up the full force of the Great Commission and go make all?