Questioning: "Come and See"

Questioning: “Come and See”

Moving beyond “come and see” as we explore “go and show”

I have been here at Woodview for just shy of 11 years. Over the course of these 11 years I have heard all kinds of excuses for why we don’t get more visitors on Sunday mornings, but by far the number 1 excuse has always been in relation to the location of our building. I can’t even tell you how often this has come up by leaders, staff, regular attenders and members. If only our building were on a main road! All of our issues would be solved! More people, more money, more baptisms… if only people could find us. While I don’t doubt that our location and lack of visibility is a factor, we are tucked back in a neighborhood that has no real traffic whatsoever, I think this mentality reveals a much larger issue.

For who knows how long (certainly longer than i have been involved in Christianity) we have all bought into a way of thinking that I think is best summed up by the phrase “Come and See.” Here is how things work: We do everything we can to make sure our buildings, services, and programs are all as nice looking as we can. We emphasis things like worship, sermons, and kids ministry. We then hope that people wander in to experience how great this is! Once here we can trap them (not literally… hopefully) and they transfer their membership… or maybe even get baptized! We all pat ourselves on the back for a job well done and the church is one more family larger. People came and saw! If for some reason people come and don’t see… well… that’s something going on within their heart and they should probably deal with that. Maybe we can blame the pastor or church office for not following up properly. Maybe the worship wasn’t good enough that day or the sermon wasn’t good?

Now, obviously I am being a bit sarcastic (I wish there was a sarcastic font.) But the truth, for many of us, isn’t too terribly far off. When I hear things like “if only we were in a better location” I have to wonder where we are placing our time, energy, and attention. Sometimes we treat things like evangelism/sharing the Gospel as if it were some passive thing. Something that the professionals at church ought to be doing while they work to provide us with some service to meet our needs. Visitors are people who find our website or drive by. Visitors are people who are looking for a church, whether because they are leaving their old one, moving to a new town, or (in my experience, rarely) searching for God to help make sense of their lives.

I often wonder if we have lost urgency when it comes to bringing people far from God back home.

Instead of a “come and see” mentality… what if we committed our lives to “going and showing?” You want more people to come to know Jesus? Go and show them why Jesus is important. You want people to be baptized? Go and show them what Jesus has done in your life.

This week I was reading about the Chinese house church movement (in The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsh). Under dictator Mao Tse-tung (who controlled China from the late 1940s-1976) Christianity become illegal. Church leaders were murdered or kicked out of the country. At the start of this unspeakable time in Chinese history, there was estimated around 2 million Christians in China. In the 1980’s Christian missionaries were able to return (although heavily monitored). You would expect there to be next to nothing left of the Christian faith…. yet, in reality, the church had exploded during it’s time as an illegal organization! There were an estimated 60 million followers of Jesus! And that number is still growing (I saw the number could be around 80 million today).

How? How can they grow without having church buildings? Paid ministry staff? Fancy services with professional worship and well done sermons? Without a kids ministry and big well done youth conferences?

The church, under pressure, said enough of “come and see” and embraced “Go and Show.” They brought the gospel message of hope and love to people WHERE THEY WERE. When the Church bravely steps into the mess of people’s lives and points the way to Jesus… powerful things happen.

Here is my challenge for you. Go and show someone why Jesus matters. Not just to boost the numbers of your congregation… but because Jesus is the single most important force in the history of the planet.