The Back Porch

I don’t know enough Christians who are like Christ.

One of the greatest challenges the church faces today is insulation. It is distant and removed. We gather in closed buildings and sing our own songs, talk to our own friends, and generally avoid contact with the outside world as often as possible, with the occasional exception of doing something “evangelistic” where we perhaps move from the church sanctuary to the church parking lot, put up some grills, and wait for people to come eat our food and listen to our songs and then we get them ready to invite them into the church sanctuary. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Today, if you want to find a Christian, you need to go to a church. If you wanted to find Christ, you had to go to a bar.

Jesus didn’t spend his time forming clubs or committees. He did not start a Christian rock band and go on a tour of churches to win people to himself. He did not stand outside abortion clinics and picket. In fact, he may have spent his time inside. He didn’t make company with the people who thought they had the religion thing figured out. Jesus spent his time with sinners. He spent his time with drunks and shady businessmen, skanks, whores, thieves, murderers, and the quintessential outcasts of his time, the tax collectors. Jesus cared deeply about all of them enough to feed, clothe, heal, and die for them.

The problem with caring is that it’s hard to care for a person you can’t see.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. Go to where people need clothing, food, or healing. Go to wherever people have broken hearts. Go to the places where people need Christ, and be Christ then and there.

If Jesus were here today, he would be holding hair while drunk students puked. He would offer rides to women on the way to have abortions. He would be a friend to those everyone else cast out.

If Jesus were here today, he’d be spending time with sinners. Why don’t we?