Living in isolation

Little by little, step by step, we are becoming a church that desires to actively engage the world - in order that people might come to know Christ.

God is calling us to move beyond our "holy huddles" and get into the game!

 

We all agree that people, all people, non-churched people need the Lord.

 

BTW, before we go on - I encourage you to invite someone to come this coming Sunday morning to Stone Church!

Let me share with you this story that I read today.

Krish Kandiah writes:

"When I was young, growing up in the United Kingdom, my family and I could always count on our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Oglive, to be around.  We left a spare key with her in case we got locked out.

We forgot our keys quite often, and she was always there - morning, afternoon, and night - to let us in.

Mrs. Oglive never went out.  She suffered from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces.  Having lived next door to her for 40 years now, I still haven't seen her venture past her doorway.  She wasn't always this way.  She has pictures on her  mantelpiece of less anxious days, from her honeymoon with Mr. Oglive and from a day at the beach with her children.

But after her husband died, Mrs. Oglive began to isolate herself.  As a child, I saw opportunity in this:  Her garden resembled a jungle, and I earned some pocket money by pretending to be Indiana Jones armed with a machete slicing through the undergrowth, cleaning the path to her front door.

As an adult, I can only imagine the heavy cloud of fear and frustration that surrounds her.  Now frail and in the twilight of life, Mrs. Oglive's curtains are almost always drawn.  But now and then, I still get locked out, and as she hands me the spare key, I am glad to see she is still alive."

So many Christians look at the world from behind closed curtains, complaining about the culture we live in rather than engaging it - and ministering toward changing it in a godly way.

 

Many churches isolate themselves from their surrounding communities - suffering from the fear of divergent viewpoints and lifestyles.

 

God calls us, my dear friends, to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus!

 

Just a thought for a Thursday.