Pastor Hunter Ponders… “An Externally Focused Church”

There is much abuzz in NC United Methodist Churches currently over a book entitled, “The Externally Focused Church.” Indeed, the Sanford District will lead a workshop for all our churches in November to help expand the conversation and draw congregations back to heart of what it means to be “church.” While you may breathe a sigh of relief that this is no “plug-and-play program designed to cure the Church,” I must caution you that I believe the Holy Spirit is up to something that could rock our world for the glory of God.

All Pastors in our Conference recently gathered to hear from one of the books co-authors, Rick Rusaw, Pastor of Lifebridge Church in Longmont, Colorado. From his opening remarks through the remainder of the day, he challenged us to consider how Christians have, by-in-large, opted for “safety first” in our living-out the Gospel, and how that has slowly lulled us into prioritizing inwardly-focused ministry to the exclusion of taking ourselves personally out into places in the world where Christ said we would not only find him, but that we would actually be loving him by serving others.

Maybe your personality is bold enough to have voiced what most of us wonder: in a rapidly changing world where Christianity seems to have less power to give meaningful direction to all this change, what must we do reclaim relevance and avoid a painful and ugly decline into complete irrelevance and eventual extinction? I’m glad you asked. Jesus himself addresses step one.

In the 5^th chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus asks an amazingly blunt and seemingly rude question that we might dismiss as a flare for the obvious. He is standing in front of a paralyzed man who is lying at the commerce gate (used by the working class folk) in near desperation over his dilemma. Jesus simply asks, “Do you want get well?” His answer is essentially, “I can't get well - and it's not my fault.” Because of his paralysis, he is in no position to compete with those who watch for the angels to “trouble the waters” in the pool of Siloam (the “green light” to be the first one into the pool and receive healing).

The Lord’s question today is the same to hurting individuals, and collectively, to his hurting Church. Our answer, evidenced by our behavior, is that we don't want to get better; we just don't want to feel like this ... we want the pain to go away so that we can go back to the behaviors that dragged us down to start with. Until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain required to change, we only look for all the reasons and excuses to remove any personal responsibility.

If you are (and I really, really hope you are!) one of Jonesboro’s faithful who desperately wants to be a part of God’s amazing impact on the world, I invite you to begin the unsettling and enlivening conversation and movement toward relevance and excitement. See you on Sunday … and where Jesus is beyond our walls!

Grace & peace,

Pastor Hunter