I
hope you read or re-read chapter 13 of Unfinished
before Sunday.
It’s a powerful and challenging chapter.
In it Richard Stearns pictures churches as God’s Outposts from which
believers are sent to be a light to the world, to come “out of our
saltshakers” and become the “salt of the earth”.
When
I was young I liked watching movies where the US Cavalry would set up outposts
in the wild west or where the French Foreign legion would set up outposts in
Africa. These movies were full
of adventure, danger, risk and high drama.
Inevitably the adventure included bloody battles between the invaders and
the invaded. Because of
this the outposts had high walls and were heavily fortified.
They were viewed by the indigenous people as intruders, there to take
their land, culture and wealth.
All too often they were exactly right.
Outposts
of the Kingdom have to be different. They
need to be outposts “without walls”, places
that send believers into the community offering grace, compassion, care, love,
becoming a healing balm to those who feel marginalized, excluded and discarded.
They need to be generous, approachable and irresistible (see page 169 in Unfinished)
Believers
are called to leave their outposts and to enter their spheres of influence
empowered with the offer of Grace that they themselves have received.
And that Grace must be felt and sensed by others.
As Paul put it (2 Corinthians 2:16) believers must become the “aroma of
Christ” to a rebellious, hurting, prideful, and angry world.
God’s
truest outposts (churches) are not fortified, rather they are vulnerable,
unarmed and easily entered. Yet
they are strong, so strong that they outlast the worst that can come against
them because they are “armed” with the strongest of all “weapons”;
forgiveness, love, generosity, compassion, faith
and God’s Grace.
Take
a moment to reflect on what “weapons” you use in the world into which God
has sent you.
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