Christianity without the Lost and Poor

7/03/07

Ok so I wanted to share a recent thought and disrupting thing that I have seen among the Body of Christ in America. It seems to me in my 8 years or so of attempting to practice Christianity that I have found that my heart has become completely out of touch with the reality of ministering to the poor and lost people of this world.

I just went to a four day Christian music festival in bushnell IL. It was a completely great time I got to see old freinds, camp, listen to some great bands, get into a few mosh pits, and even do a little techno dancing. Good times. One thing that is great about Cornerstone is that it attracts a large number of beleivers.

So there we were camping with our little group of friends and I notice that our neigbors were definitely non beleivers, or at least they were christians who weren't really all that concerned with outward appearences of righteousness. They had snuck alcohol in and there was quite a decent measure of profanity that seemed to pour from their mouths. Anyways a girl that I was camping with had made friends with them. Which at first I was irritated because they were like wrong for drinking and cussing at the fest. So anyways I decided to go over and check out a game they were playing called maffia. They actually seemed like a pretty cool group of people. So I dropped the whole judging them thing.

The last day we decided that we should all lay hands on each other and pray as we departed from the festival. My friend Tamara decided that she would invite one of the guys from this group over, so he comes over to get prayer. Then one of his friends decides he wants prayer as well. So anyways to make it short the Holy Spirit really seemed to show up as we prayed for these two, and my heart was really breaking for them. One of the guys broke down and started weeping before the Lord. It was great.

This leads me into my thought here: As a Christian I have completely forsaken the lost and the poor over the series of the last several weeks. I recently moved to Kansas City and joined up with the house of prayer. Its great and I love everything about the ministry. I realize however though that I have settled into a place of convenience before the Lord and I have forgotten my responsibility to the World around me. I rarely evangelize, like once or twice a week, and I couldn't even tell you the name of a non christian in Kansas City.

Don't get me wrong there are many great strengths that come along with being involved with a faith community, my prayer life is active, the word of the Lord is coming more alive on the inside. There are many personal things that are going on that are great, and I am most thankful for that.

So anyways I have recently come to this frustration with myself and with the body of christ in the west. It seems as though we have been taught that we need to forsake relationships with the people of the world who have an appearence of wickedness, there is this huge push to build Godly relationships and to surround ourselves with people who are really spiritual and cool christians.

I find the biblical model to be different a little bit: Christ was notoriously known and even critisized because of the company that he kept. He was actually intentional about surrounding himself with those who seemed to be in the greatest places of despair. This was absurd to the pharisee's. This is why we know him as the friend of sinners.

So now I have been asking myself the question. How can I call myself spiritual or religious if I don't surround myself with the lost and with the poor. You can't even really do christianity without the lost and the poor. To ignore the cry of the dying world and settle into a utopian world of comfortable Christianity, where everything has to be happy and go lucky all the time, is to ignore the very call of God upon our lives and forsake the mandate he has placed upon his church.

You see God's heart for the poor is unbeleivable. He is bursting and aching with compassion over the lost and the poor in the earth. Us church folk seem to be a bit removed from that reality in the heart of our father. How do we change. I think the change has to begin with prayer that moves us into action. So here is my beggining.

Father you are good and faithful, thank you for your mercy and salvation and your goodness in my life. Lord send me to live amongst the poor, i want my light and live to shin amidst the dark and dying in my generation. Father help me and give me the power and boldness to let the light shine in my generation. In a world that aches with real pain and real problems I want to be Christ to them, I want to be a witness. God give me the love that you have for humanity that will bring me into the place of service to the world around me that men might come to know you as saviour. Help us love in deed and in truth Father. In your son's Holy name I pray. Amen