Rev. Andy Whitaker Smith
Let me say something you might find surprising: Inviting people to church can be scary, awkward, and confusing, just to name a few feelings. Does that shock anyone?
We don’t want to be pushy, we don’t want to be overpowering, and maybe we’re even worried that people won’t accept our invitation. But what if we instead focused on the things we love about BEING THE CHURCH?
What if, instead, we shared why the Story connects with where we are in life? What if we shared why the Experience is meaningful to us? What if we showed the Love Jesus teaches us to share?
What if that’s inviting people to church?
What DO we like inviting people to….? When was the last time we saw something, read something, heard something, smelled something….and we wanted to share it with others? We are created to share our experiences.
We are busier and more exhausted than we’ve ever been. We hardly have time for anything. So how do we carve out time for the experiences which are meaningful to us? Have we encountered Jesus is such a way that we wish to know more…experience more? Can it involve more than just “coming to church” one hour for one day of one week? What is it about First United Methodist Church that keeps us coming back? Music? Communion? Intimacy? Are these experiences others may be looking for, in this exhausting world?
There’s a lot of discussion and research around why younger generations are so anxious—that a lot of it has to do with over-stimulation and over-information. Not that info is bad, but there’s so much, and, like food, some of it can be considered “empty calorie” info (by the way….it’s not just young people….). But this also used to be and can still be a way we think will “sell” people—or attract people—to church….when they’re really looking for something more.
Rachel Held Evans, a popular young person in the Evangelical Movement, who unfortunately passed away before the age of 40, said of herself and her generation: “We’re not looking for information….we’re looking for AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCE with God.”
How does Jesus’ healing of a blind man remind us that when we experience Jesus—and we’re able to SEE in a way we never have, before—THIS is what we make time for?
John 9:5-12—As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the
mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
This is a long and beautiful story of Jesus encountering a man who is blind, cures his blindness, and when the man starts sharing his experience, he gets bombarded with all these questions from people demanding “information.”
“I DON’T KNOW.” “I do not know whether he is a sinner. I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
When I was in college, I went with my friends to see Return of the King. It was one of the greatest experiences with my best friends. When we talked about it with our roommate who didn’t want to go, he started in on how boring those movies are, are they’re too long, and this and that; and I almost instinctively poised to defend it….until I suddenly realized I didn’t need to. It didn’t matter whether or not my roommate accepted my experience. That didn’t change my experience. Sharing our experience isn’t about convincing people our experience is valid, or that it should be someone else’s.
Everyone challenged the blind man’s experience of Jesus….but it doesn’t change…how he’s been changed.
Jesus doesn’t command us to convince people about him. Jesus doesn’t command us to convert people to him. Jesus commands us to share him.
UMC new vision statement: The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.
Pastor Kim is going to start a new message series on this in The Current, next Sunday, to process through what this means. It also means that the Mission hasn’t changed, which you see on the bulletin cover, most Sundays: Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.
I need to confess….I know how to make an omelette, I know how to make a cookie, I know how to make a bed. I don’t know how to “make a disciple.”
MATTHEW 28: When we read Jesus saying “Go and make disciples,” that’s a modern Western translation, and much different
than what he actually said in the ancient Greek, which was “GO DISCIPLE.” It’s a verb. We are called to disciple each other. And the way we begin that…is sharing our experience.When we invite people to church, we don’t need to invite them to our building, or our organization, or even our ministries. We can invite them, first, to the experience. “You’ve just got to try it for yourself.”