There is terrible truth in that title . . . we christians love conditionally. We rarely if ever love unconditionally. I mean really love people . . . all people, including terrorists. I still shudder a bit when I recall the enthusiasm my military chaplain friend had for killing the terrorists. In fact we had an argument about it. I am not a pacifist, but on the other hand, violence only spawns more violence, killing more killing, hate more hate . . . love more love? I find my patriotic roots struggling against the idea of loving terrorists from Iraq (although none of the terrorists on 9/11 actually were from Iraq). The bottom line is that I am more American than I am a Christian (citizen of the heavenly Kingdom). This is bad, really bad.
It expresses itself in much more insidious ways everyday in my life, but worse yet in the church life. We christians use love as a product we are selling, a tool to be used. When we are targeting someone for evangelism, we love them. If it becomes apparent that the target of our evangelism is not ever going to respond, we move on in our love attention. That’s not love it is project management. Loving attention was only one of the methods employed to reach the objective, and when the objective could not be reached, loving attention was shifted elsewhere. I have seen this people-as-projects mentality throughout my entire life in the church. I hate to break this to you, but that ain’t love. And furthermore, pagans are way smarter than you and I, they already know we don’t really love them. My gay barber in the states once said it best, “I don’t go to church, those people hate me there.” Yep, those are god’s children in there . . . hmmm?
And then we use love to keep everyone in line. If our children, or the people in church behave and stay righteous, they receive our most intense and approving love attention, if they start to blow it, fail, (ye gads sin!), then we pull back from them, show our disappointment (and implied righteousness) by limiting the quantity and quality of love shown or given. Man, I get that kind of feedback from people just walking in the door of their church most of the time! I mean I don’t wear dockers, or ties or suit coats on the one side, and have long hair, and sport a couple of earrings on the other side, . . . I don’t look like their idea of christian, at least I certainly don’t look like a missionary (thank God). Don Miller said it well, "Something got crossed in the wires, and I became the person I should be and not the person I am. It feels like I should go back and get the person that I am and bring him here to the person I should be. Are you following me at all?" I think I should be the person I am, not a cookie cutter christian, because then I would have to hate homosexuals and look neat and be busy all the time.
This whole issue of how I/we use love as emotional blackmail has been riding heavy on my soul these last couple of days. I have been really thinking about it and came to realize that this is about as unchristian, e.g. not Christlike, as I can get. This is why our backdoors are at least as large as our front doors in the church. This is why so many drop out of the journey. Hell, this is why I think about dropping out of the journey! I am 100% certain that no one in the church would love me, if they really knew me. And I am equally certain that everyone in the local bar would continue to love me were they to know everything about me, because they don’t use love as a weapon. This bothers me much, and I am not going to try and fix you (a sigh of relief), instead I am going to try and fix me by throwing myself at the feet of the One who loves me, the real me, as ugly as it may be, without conditions. And the second thing I am going to do, is try to see people how Jesus sees them, even the terrorists. I am pretty sure He does not see them as objects to be killed and executed, but rather much like me.
It expresses itself in much more insidious ways everyday in my life, but worse yet in the church life. We christians use love as a product we are selling, a tool to be used. When we are targeting someone for evangelism, we love them. If it becomes apparent that the target of our evangelism is not ever going to respond, we move on in our love attention. That’s not love it is project management. Loving attention was only one of the methods employed to reach the objective, and when the objective could not be reached, loving attention was shifted elsewhere. I have seen this people-as-projects mentality throughout my entire life in the church. I hate to break this to you, but that ain’t love. And furthermore, pagans are way smarter than you and I, they already know we don’t really love them. My gay barber in the states once said it best, “I don’t go to church, those people hate me there.” Yep, those are god’s children in there . . . hmmm?
And then we use love to keep everyone in line. If our children, or the people in church behave and stay righteous, they receive our most intense and approving love attention, if they start to blow it, fail, (ye gads sin!), then we pull back from them, show our disappointment (and implied righteousness) by limiting the quantity and quality of love shown or given. Man, I get that kind of feedback from people just walking in the door of their church most of the time! I mean I don’t wear dockers, or ties or suit coats on the one side, and have long hair, and sport a couple of earrings on the other side, . . . I don’t look like their idea of christian, at least I certainly don’t look like a missionary (thank God). Don Miller said it well, "Something got crossed in the wires, and I became the person I should be and not the person I am. It feels like I should go back and get the person that I am and bring him here to the person I should be. Are you following me at all?" I think I should be the person I am, not a cookie cutter christian, because then I would have to hate homosexuals and look neat and be busy all the time.
This whole issue of how I/we use love as emotional blackmail has been riding heavy on my soul these last couple of days. I have been really thinking about it and came to realize that this is about as unchristian, e.g. not Christlike, as I can get. This is why our backdoors are at least as large as our front doors in the church. This is why so many drop out of the journey. Hell, this is why I think about dropping out of the journey! I am 100% certain that no one in the church would love me, if they really knew me. And I am equally certain that everyone in the local bar would continue to love me were they to know everything about me, because they don’t use love as a weapon. This bothers me much, and I am not going to try and fix you (a sigh of relief), instead I am going to try and fix me by throwing myself at the feet of the One who loves me, the real me, as ugly as it may be, without conditions. And the second thing I am going to do, is try to see people how Jesus sees them, even the terrorists. I am pretty sure He does not see them as objects to be killed and executed, but rather much like me.
9 comments:
The more I ponder this, the more I think how remarkable Jesus' treatment of people was. With stunning brevity he could uphold human dignity and lay waste to hypocrisy, while not doing anything contrary to who He was.
The most remarkable account I've heard recently of the Lord Himself working in a life was a man who lost everything to drug addiction. The story wound up in a prison cell, with this man laying in his own waste, screaming and cursing. Other inmates would check in him hourly to make sure he hadn't hung himself. He said simply that God spoke to him in this cell where he was in solitary for 40 days. I have to continually remind myself that people who truly want God are far more desperate than myself. I have nothing, nothing to add to that except be a conduit, bringing them to the King however that can be done, like the men who dug a hole in a roof.
So as an alternative to project management we could just kinda hang out with the dirty old man next door, fix his wheelbarrow once in a while, stuff like that - and keep doing that year after year whether or not he ever shows the slightest interest in Jesus . . .
Yep Beth, something like that. I know it does not sound nearly as production oriented as power evangelism, but I can't save anyone, I can only love them, and be loving to them because Jesus loves them, not because they might become Republicans or some horrible thing like that. BTW Beth are jerking my chain here?
As a loving Republican person, I would never jerk anyone's chain or earring or anything like that . . .
LOL! Well as a loving Democratic person, I think you might be loading my wagon AND jerking my chain . . . good metaphors from the South.
But seriously, I was making a point - loving anyone is a way of life, not a project. I commented on someone else's blog about an old, old movie called the Gospel Blimp where this couple go nuts trying to do project-oriented things like renting a blimp and dropping tracts all over their neighbors' lawns and equally hideous ideas. In the end, their nextdoor neighbors do come to church and get saved, but explain that it was in spite of, not because of, all those projects, but just because the Christian couple really truly did love their neighbors in the midst of their flurry of projects.
Every now and then I feel guilty and say to Mitch, "we should Reach Our Neighbors" meaning . . . let's do a Program, a Project, like load up a wagon full of whatevers and distribute them door to door or something. He always gets annoyingly quiet when I get these ideas. Now I realize why. He resists project-ism about as much as you do. He is just more polite than you :-) (had to toss in a little more chain-jerking)
So I am learning. Have to go find some dirty old man in my neighbor and see if he's got a broken wheelbarrow. Oops - see - that's starting to sound like a to-do list project already, isn't it?
Perhaps I'm incurable.
Awesome post, Dr. D.--you rock! This is why I can't stand the phrase "intentional evangelism" (or discipleship or whatever) because it suggests that evangelism is a project or program that has to be carefully planned and thought out rather than a way of life. And I think the more "intentional" and project-oriented our evangelism is, the less it is led by God's Spirit and the more it is of the flesh.
During our married lives, my husband and I probably had the most impact on a little boy without a father whom we took to church every week and whom my husband walked to kindergarten every day before he was old enough to walk to school by himself. But we never sat down and "planned" any of this or made our relationship with this child and his unchurched mother a "project." But with such an emphasis on ministry being "purpose-driven" these days, I can understand why many Christians find themselves having to "unlearn" the project mindset.
Go Mitch go . . . Mr Polite himself. :-)
What a good reminder to be responsible for my own actions regardless of anyone elses response or lack thereof. Jesus gave me two commands: Love God and Love Others. Two simple commands that didn't limit to a specific audience. A little bit of the kingdom of heaven for me to give to others to savor until His Kingdom comes. If I could only be that fragrance consistantly to both/either believers and/or unbelievers.
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