I read a great blog post from Ben Stevens writing at the Gospel Coalition. His post, To Love Your Neighbor, You Must Know Your Neighbor talks about the way he and his wife got to know the neighbors in his new apartment complex. I liked the name of the post right out of the gate and apppreciated what he has to say. What I really liked was that nowhere in the article does it sound like this is strictly a ploy designed to get people to come to your church. Here is a snippet:
You cannot love your neighbor if you do not know that neighbor. Time spent with neighbors that does not result in conversions, does not result in spiritual conversation, or does not result in any greater appreciation of the work of Christ, is not a net loss. Let us be resolved to undertake this kind of work confident that it is a legitimate end unto itself, that our culture deserves our attention, and that God will call us to account for the time spent serving neighbors.
You should check it out, this is a great topic and one the church should embrace.
3 comments:
This made me think back to when I first started looking for a church family, I was about 22 years old at the time. The church people were very friendly, the first Sunday I went a family was waiting at the door and greeted me by name, after the service I was invited to stay at the carry in, everyone was so welcoming and so friendly. I was rather gullible and I thought these people really wanted to be my friends. The main goal was to make sure that new people hurried up and "got saved". Once you were "saved" their interest/energies moved on to the next new person. It was very disconcerting. My husband did not attend the church with me, so the men would stop by our home to try and "save" him. It was so awkward, a group of men showing up, with nothing in common with my husband, chit chatting about salvation then leaving. Their visits made my husband want to avoid the church at all costs.
I know that the men meant well, their intentions were good, and I know the church meant well, their intentions were good. And, I did come to Christ at that church, and it was the beginning of my Christian life, for that I am thankful.
Bean,
We had a similar experience. Some women from a local church stopped over. One of them was talking to my wife in the kitchen but the other one was talking to my youngest kids and led a couple of them to repeat "the sinners prayer" and then declared them saved! The funny thing was that one my daughters, who was maybe 11-12 at the time, called this woman out on it and she got kind of mad. It would have been nice if they were just visiting but they had ulterior motives. Needless to say we never darkened the door of that (very huge and fancy) church building.
We need to get together with you and your husband for coffee or breakfast some Saturday.
Sounds good.
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