Outreach: Jesus destroys all kinds of barriers

Any person can brainstorm a grocery list’s worth of reasons why he or she should not do outreach. Among those reasons a few seem to be on the top of everybody’s list. They are as follows:

1. I wouldn’t know what to say. Meaning, I don’t know how to start the conversation. Any conversation I had with a person would be awkward and uncomfortable for the both of us. If someone is truly interested in hearing more about Christianity I really don’t know how to communicate the gospel message in a simple and clear way.

2. I don’t like going up to strangers and hounding them about their religious beliefs. I won’t want anyone coming up to me and telling me what to believe, and therefore I think it is either a bad witness or not effective for me to be going up to people and telling them what to believe.

3. Seriously dude, I don’t have the time! I’m serious, look at my schedule and tell me where I’m supposed to find the time to do outreach. I’m involved in these other teams of the ministry already, attend the large group meeting every week, and also lead a Bible study every week. I’ve been really wanting to start up accountability and one-on-one discipleship as well and my schedule is bursting at the seams without outreach responsibilities being thrown on my plate as well. And oh, did you forget that I’m a full time student with 18 credits?!?

Now no one, absolutely no one can say these reasons are not barriers to outreach. Despite this, what I do want to make clear is that no barrier through Christ’s power and love can stand. Barriers 1. and 2. can in fact be broken quite easily I think. It just takes our eyes to be focused on the intense love of God for humanity, our human sinful predicament, and our deep need to hear a saving message. The reason why these barriers often times seem to be set in concrete is because we take our eyes off of Christ, off of our love and need of our neighbor, and instead have eyes focused upon our self, our own comfortability, and caring too much about what others might think of us. I must say here that it is a horrible and shameful thing to be prevented to from sharing the gospel with another individual because we ourselves are too focused upon what others may think and say about us behind our backs. Let us not be ashamed of the glorious gospel message, spoken from humble lips which comes from a heart fixed upon the Lord’s love for humanity.

Barrier 1. can often times be swept away by education of the gospel, and an individual’s own rehearsal and practice of the gospel message. This will help make talking about it feel more comfortable, and words will start to come more easily, as you yourself pin down in your mind what is appropriate and essential to share about the Father’s love coming down to man in the form of flesh and blood.

The largest barriers left are starting conversations with people, coming across as hounding others about their worldview, and barrier 3., the dreaded, “I don’t have enough time barrier.” So what can bring these walls tumbling to the ground?

Let’s look at Luke 15:1-2, and the accusation that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law held against Jesus. The murmuring happening here wasn’t an isolated event. Jesus wasn’t eating with these “unacceptable” people on “outreach event day” and then eating the religious crowd the rest of his days. No, this was ordinary for Jesus, this was part of his everyday life. Any sliver or slice we take from Jesus’ ministry years never shows a dichotomy “Outreach Jesus” and “Ordinary Jesus.” Thinking of Jesus in terms like this is quite silly. In fact, I laugh as I type these words. But truly, somewhere our thoughts have derailed if we think there is an “on/off” switch for when we want to enter outreach ministry mode. This kind of thinking was surely foreign to Jesus.

You see there is something very telling about the snapshot of Jesus given in Luke 15:1-2. Imagine the “sinners” eating with Jesus. They surely didn’t have the impression of Jesus as an enemy whom they hated, with him hounding them all the time about their life and worldview. We can intuit this because all evidence points that “sinners” welcomed Jesus to their dinner table and invited him to eat with them. Clearly, somehow then Jesus could destroy barrier 2. Jesus didn’t water down his difficult heart piercing message, but somehow the “sinners” were still listening and obviously didn’t feel hounded and irritated to want to toss Jesus from their dinner table. Jesus spoke truth and still he was able to cultivate an in-road to build relationships with sinners, and legitimately gain their ear to have them listen to him. Amazing, this Jesus character was, amazing!

Back to the idea of “Outreach Jesus” versus “Ordinary Jesus.” Since Jesus was Jesus and not split, he didn’t have to spend time appealing to different personalities. You see taking time to appeal to different personalities would double the time Jesus would have to spend in his ministry. Jesus would have to be “Outreach Jesus” half of the time and “Ordinary Jesus” the other half of the time if he operated in two different mindsets. What I am supposed to do is to weave “Outreach Nick” into the fabric of “Nick.” At the end of the day there is just Nick, as “Outreach Nick” becomes habitual and intertwined into my innermost part of my being. The reason why barrier 3. exists is because I do a poor job of understanding the core of outreach and view outreach of needing to tap into an additional time in my already crazy busy schedule for me to become “Outreach Nick.” No one has that much free time in his or her schedule to be splitting time between two different personas within him or herself. If splitting time between personalities was something that Christ calls us to, than no one would ever have time to do any outreach, including Jesus himself!

The reason barrier 3. can be broken is because “Outreach Jesus” is really “Jesus,” not someone different. Luke 15 Jesus is John 1 Jesus. It can be argued that Jesus was a busy busy man. In fact, doesn’t Jesus have a better argument than any of us that he had absolutely no time left in his daily schedule to do outreach! And yet, he was outreach machine. How is this possible again? Jesus didn’t have to create more time in his schedule for “Outreach Jesus” to perform and shine; it was already imbedded in “Normal Jesus.” Outreach wasn’t something additional, something above and beyond, something difficult to seek out, or something necessary to be penciled into an already crammed schedule. Outreach was incorporated seamlessly into the ebb and flow of everyday life. Outreach was part of that one life. Jesus slept. He didn’t have to lead a double life and not sleep in order to fulfill the itchings and cravings of “Outreach Jesus.” Outreach wasn’t something detached, or some free floating piece orbiting somewhere in outer space.

In summary, barrier 3. was no barrier at all for Jesus as it took no additional time at all for Jesus to fit outreach into his schedule! There was only Jesus, “Outreach Jesus” never had to lobby for time, it was already built into the singular mind of Christ. So for us to say, “I don’t have time to outreach” signifies we have not fully grasped the concept of weaving the outreach mentality into our already existing persona. We must allow our mindsets to be transformed to have a new orientation and outlook upon how we daily relate with others.

Practically what does this mean?

1. I eat. I eat food, usually breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and so do most other humans. So if I’m going to spend time eating anyways, it takes absolutely zero additional time for me to spend that meal time eating with non-Christians. This is the best of both worlds! I get to eat, (which I love), I get to meet, form relationships, and do outreach (and be like Jesus who also met, formed relationships and did outreach in Lk 15). I get to be more like Jesus! Yippee!

2. I hang out, socialize, and play games like apples to apples, guesstures, etc, on Friday and Saturday nights. Once again, if I’m going to spend time, hang out and socialize, it takes zero additional time for me to hang out and invite others to join in my reindeer games (apples to apples, or whatever college kids play nowadays) with my existing group of friends. Why hang in your apartment with your same group of Christian friends another night when you can go into the dorms inviting various new faces, and get some rowdy games a brewing in the dorm lounge. This is the best of both worlds, because once again, you meet new people, form new relationships, and somewhere down the road you have the potential once again to tell other people about Jesus’ life. And again the additional time this outreach lifestyle takes on your schedule is zero hours a week.

3. I go to class. Hey, I don’t think I ever died talking to those classmates that always sit next to me. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that I’m embarrassed to admit, but still don’t know their names. Not all people bite. Be polite, start some chit chat, and who knows maybe you have common interests and will catch a bite to eat sometime. Again zero additional time, because hey, you’re stuck in class for that class period anyways.

My apologies for my being wordy, it takes too long to write some of these blog entries, so I’m leaving it as is, and hope everyone who reads it catches the heart of what I write. Be blessed and serve one another!