April 20th is Easter - the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You may remember that we have two identical worship services that day at 9:00 am and 10:30 am. There will be Foundations classes for children during the sermon only at 9:00 am, and an extra session of children’s church at the 10:30 am worship.
I encourage you to invite a friend, neighbor, or acquaintance to worship that day. You can forward our email invitation to others or post it on your Facebook wall. This is a golden opportunity to use our church worship service as a tool for making disciples of people you know who aren’t disciples currently. Many people attend Christian worship once or twice a year. Rather than cajole them for their poor attendance, we welcome them at Grace and hope they will come back every Easter to GCC. It may be an important spiritual moment for someone. Perhaps it will be a friend or family member who turns a corner this Easter, and begins to explore the claims of Jesus Christ more earnestly.
This mission of making disciples of people are either aren’t disciples, or in some cases stalled in their relationship with Jesus Christ, is not left in the hands of professionals. In Matthew 28:18-20, it is left with all of us who are disciples of Jesus, who believe in Him, to carry out the task of discipleship in the whole world. We all have a part to play in this mission. As a church we are involved globally through what we now call “missions”, but individually we are all a part of this work locally with those we know around us. As I mentioned a few weeks ago in a sermon, the international component has changed over the years. Now many people live around us from other nations of the world. Some of these immigrants are from lands to which we have sent missionaries. We should include these international guests in our thinking about whom we invite to GCC for Easter. There is nothing lonelier than being a stranger in a strange land. God may use kindness and friendship to open doors in the lives of people we know.
To set some realistic expectations, my hunch is that few people will actually count this Easter as the day they were converted to the Christian faith. It could happen, and it may happen, but it is just as important for smaller steps to occur. I once heard someone’s theory of the stages of the soul in conversion. A person might be asleep - disinterested in God; awake - now somewhat curious about spiritual things; convicted - feeling a hard press of the Holy Spirit in their lives and moving toward that last stage; converted - a believer in Jesus Christ. Steve Smallman once wrote of the “gestation period” in conversion; if becoming a Christian is described as being born again, that may be why many of us take some time to come to faith.
The point of all that is this: if we can help someone along, that is a great thing. If coming to an Easter service causes someone to ask some serious questions about faith, we should consider that a victory. The Christian faith will survive a careful examination. If their generic spiritual interest becomes something more specific - “I must find out how to deal with this burden I now feel”- that is a good thing, too! Of course we are all interested in authentic conversions to the Christian faith that lead to a lifetime of discipleship. It’s okay if we all take a deep breath and pray earnestly and wait hopefully.
Another way to think of this process is this: perhaps God will start a crack in the dam of unbelief. Modern people tend to have faulty logic and reason. They have many ideas about the way of following Christ that are emotional and cultural, but not rational. They have many high-sounding objections to following Christ, but few have studied the claims of Christ, or considered the promises which the gospel of Jesus Christ offers them. They have stereotyped Christians and Christianity, perhaps from bad experiences they’ve had before. If something happens to shake up those preconceived notions, one thing can lead to another.
Here is an example of this in this video. Listen from about 40:00 minutes on to hear how Alistair McGrath had his ideas challenged. It was very much a “dam-breaking” kind of experience. He realized his scientific worldview had a measure of faith and doubt involved, and that caused him to revisit the Christian faith. The other thing that is powerful about this discussion is the winsome and friendly nature of the debate and discussion.
Consider the possibility of adding hospitality to your invitation to Easter service. Consider setting a few more places at the table and inviting your friends to join you around the table. One of our daughters is bringing a guest only to our Easter meal. She isn’t ready to try church out, but is ready to experience the friendship and hospitality of Christian believers on our best day.
Lastly, pray! Let’s ask the “Lord of the Harvest” to send us out in effective witness of Jesus Christ!
In Him,
Don