Last night was the first night of our youth drop-in at our church in Rathcoole. Now to be honest, our wee church is no oil-painting, it's hitting sixty showing it's age. Over Christmas, what with all the snow and all, we had a burst pipe or four round in the halls and now the heating is on a go slow. Despite the valiant efforts of a few very hard workers it will never be more than adequate. But sometimes good enough is good enough.
But they are not new faces, in fact we know them all pretty well but they've always been fringe players, always about but never committing, always listening but never hearing.
Why is it that our church, the church, struggles with these people in their late teens who don't really fit in anywhere? Not high achievers at school, maybe some issues at home, poorly motivated, no hope. These are our people. These are the ones that fit in best to the church. These kids are you and me, right?
If you have Jesus you'll recognise how lost you were without him, how you needed someone to love you purely, not selfishly. If you have Christ you know what it is to be brought from the outside inside. This is our great message - this is the good news.
So why is it that we fail so badly at reaching people on the fringes of society, are we going to just give up on another generation. We do fairly well at reaching educated, polite, church-ready people and God knows that those people need Him as much as anyone. But what about the others, the ones that need more grace, more patience? Is there enough love for them too?
Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.
Luke 14:23
The ones that need it most are the ones we shy away from because it's too difficult to reach out from our own level of comfort and reach across into theirs. Comfort makes for selective witnessing. Jesus isn't selective.
ReplyDelete