Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.From Psalm 51
So today (yesterday, technically) was Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the Church, as our children’s minister pointed out in her message. Today is the day that the Holy Spirit descended like fire on the disciples, and ignited the growth of the body of Christ.
Thinking about the story took me back to one of the [somewhat] unique positions of the Churches of Christ, one that I’m still pretty attached to (though a little uncertain of), based in Acts 2:37-8: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
This of course is the doctrine of the believer’s baptism. I’m not going to talk about it, so if your fuzzy, check out info on the Anabaptists, Stone/Campbell Movement, or the Restoration. That thought drove me to think of something else.
When I was baptized into Christ, I felt a joy in my soul that I had never known. It wasn’t just the peace of knowing I had become a child of God, or comfort of knowing I would have a place in heaven, but the joy of the Lord. I knew I had received the Spirit…it was all-consuming.
I keep a journal that I use to keep track of random, sometimes deep (sometimes wafer-thin) thoughts. A few years ago, during my senior year of college, I think, I wrote this:
I got this guy in my class. He’s a relatively new Christian. I love this guy. He’s different. New, even.
I didn’t grow up in church, so I have a different perspective on the Gospel than other people here. But this guy is way different. He came to play football. I remember one night sophomore year I was leaving my dorm and he was running in and said, “Gimme a hug, brother!” and bear-hugged me. “I just got baptized tonight!”
I was surprised, and understandably so. In my experience, by 20 minutes after baptism the emotional excitement is long gone, and after that the fire only lasts so long. But that night he was jumping around and yelling and telling everyone. If only we could all be so excited.
If you picked up on the clues, I wrote this a couple of years after the event, and the guy was still on fire. It was amazing. There was no one so passionate about the things we talked about, unless they were minor doctrinal quarrels, like whether or not it’s okay to have communion on a day other than Sunday. But he was passionate about things like sharing the Gospel, and the spiritual warfare we’re all a part of.
When I was in class, I became more passionate about those things, too. There’s just something about being around a new believer that gives life to the Gospel in your heart. It’s like adding a little fuel to your fire.
“The church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.” — Emil Brunner
I’ve been a part of my church for nearly 20 months, now. Ask me how many new believers we’ve had. Come on, ask…Ok, I’ll just tell you: zero. The really sad news is that it doesn’t seem to be a problem for anyone. I remember asking one day what the evangelism committee did, and the answer was “hospitality”.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of evangelism to go out? How is being nice to the people who come in equivalent to evangelism? But that’s no matter. One day last year a group of students from a local Christian college came by to ask a few questions of the staff. I was brand new at the time, so I was in and out of the office, unable (and a little afraid) to answer many of their questions.
Later in the day I was talking with a few staff members who were involved, and apparently the students had asked the very question I wanted you to ask me…how many? The staff’s reaction was something along the lines of, “It’s not all about new believers, it’s about the kind of growth and community they experience.”
At first I was all aboard. A few years ago I brainstormed a church system that was much like a school district: one church evangelized you and taught you the basics, then you moved on to a church that would provide deeper teaching and closer community, then you would be able to go to a church that would teach you to be a leader in the first level church (Anybody want to help me with a churchplant?).
But after the time I’ve spent there I’ve found that not only are there no new Christians, but there’s little growth to speak of. But there is one thing to get excited about: people leaving other churches in town to come to ours.
It’s like the whole purpose of growth is to show how great our church is. We apparently enjoy hearing people say, “Oh, we left _________ to come here for the __________ program.”
I thought we were trying to spread the kingdom, not just grow our church.
Plus, this gives our members the idea that the church (our local congregation) is there to serve them, when, in actuality, we are all there to serve the Church (the whole body of Christ). How do we serve the church? By following orders: “Go into all the world…”
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