My last post "Cell Phones – Christ -The Call", shared my thoughts on what we choose to do and doing it well.
In an interview Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone, addresses both his fascination with modern cell phone capabilities, and his dismay at what he calls cellular's "unfulfilled promise." He believes that "promise" was, and is, to simply deliver reliable and accessible wireless phone service. An insightful Cooper founded ArrayComm in 1992 with a sole mission is to simplify wireless communication and free it from an "untethered internet". An internet that, while offering "promise", severely pollutes the purity of cellular service.
So, you're wondering; "What does that have to do with the Church?"
The Gospel, like cell phones, fascinated curious people at it's inception. Both meet a created need and successfully did so with clever simplicity. And both have become prolifically burdened to the point of near non-function by zealous over-programming. You see, we're so used to fascinating features that we're no longer awed by cellular technology. If anything, we're accepting of mediocrity to the point we openly buy into the fact that half the junk crammed into our phones won't work properly after a few months, and some of it never at all. They become complicated and cumbersome as we "make them better" with more programs to widen their appeal and functionality. In reality we slowly kill them over time.
The life example of Christ, the Church of the Book of Acts, and those nurtured by Paul, not only reached out to the poor; they were, or became the poor. They sold and gave what they had to meet the needs of those without choice in order to relay the message of choice, hope, and promise. They met in homes, ate together, and built value into the lives of each other. The "haves" and "have-nots" shared equally in the physical and spiritual bounty that was the promise of the Gospel and Church that seamlessly co-existed.
"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction." James 1:27
While I think James is speaking both literally and metaphorically about the Church meeting the needs of the broken and forgotten parts of society it is also a far cry from some of the bannered and polished programs we create mainly to incubate our own. In most cases, Churches create passive activities that require the lost to find us instead of us reaching out beyond our sanctuaries to find them.
The Gospel is a simple message, a promise given to simple people to pass on to other simple people. Christ didn't come looking for the scholarly, self appointed important people of the day, whom He knew would begin over-programming His message. He sought out, captivated, and captured the hearts and souls of those most often left behind. He implores us to do much the same. Christ lived life out in the open. He sought the ill at heart and they sought him. He nourished their hungers physically and spiritually. Not by plugging people into programs and filling them with mass produced cookies and sugared up water . . . but by meeting their basic needs, nurturing friendships, and fulfilling the promise of life both today and in eternity.
Cooper said this about cell phones; "People want to talk to other people - not a house, or an office, or a car. Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire." Relate it to The Gospel in this way; People seek out and find Christ in other people – not through attending an over-programmed, over structured, religious system that requires them to immediately conform and plug-in or be damned. Given a choice, the lost would choose to find salvation and freedom through your life, and mine, unfettered by the daunting facades we construct around, and obscure The Gospel with.
"Just Do It Well"
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