Churches can be very busy places. My Sunday, these days, are pretty busy. Then we have a bunch of stuff on in the week. English Classes, Food Club, Dialogue Evening, Homeless drop-in, Lego club. There’s stuff happening most days at the church building. On top of all that, we are trying to encourage people to be involved in stuff in the community too as well as carving out the time to hang out together and do softer kinds of discipleship.
As you think about your own church, I am sure you can think of various things you are doing too. Some things that aim to build up believers, other things that aim to reach unbelievers. But as you think of all those things, it bears asking a question: do you actually tell people about Jesus? It might sound like a stupid question. Surely, if we’re anything, we’re all about telling people about Jesus, aren’t we? Certainly, that’s what we like to think about ourselves.
But I wonder whether that is always what is going on. For sure, I think we’re often busy. We’re certainly involved in stuff that we think exists for the purposes to telling people about Jesus. It’s just that often, I think we don’t end up telling people about Jesus at all.
It is very easy to get taken up with teaching English, doling out food or making Lego. You can set up a toddler group and get totally taken up with playing with the kids or making sure all the toys are out. You can do all sorts of things and get taken up with the thing itself and forget the most important thing: this exists to tell people about Jesus.
Sometimes, I think we end up hiding away in kitchens and getting caught up in the practicalities because we know we’re there to talk about Jesus but we’re a little scared to do it. But other times, I think it’s that we’ve forgotten what we’re there to do. The need we’re meeting, the event we’re putting on, becomes the whole reason for being there rather than a vehicle or means of telling people about the Lord Jesus.
As Evangelicals, we like to think we’re all about telling people about Jesus. But I wonder if many people would view Evangelicals as very “active” and not much more. The truth is, we are often very busy. But the real question is, do we actually tell people about the Lord Jesus?