Finding bridges to the world
Recently I've been thinking about how we as Christians have burned many of the bridges to the society that we live in. We are called to be Holy, which means to be set apart for God, but does that mean we have nothing in common with the people around us?
For purposes of illustration I want to focus on one example of this. In the minds of many people in America, Christians and conservative Republicans have become synonymous terms. While we hold some of the same values as conservative Republicans we are not the same. For instance there are many people in America who would never consider Christianity because they think that we are against the environment. They make the equation that since Christianity=conservative Republican and conservative Republican=anti environment (please no cards and letters defending the Republicans environmental policies, I am talking about perception, not necessarily reality) then Christianity=anti environment. So the people that love the environment never investigate the claims of Jesus because they think that he is somehow an anti-environmental polluter!
The Bible has something else to say about this. We, as human beings have a God given charge to “tend the garden”. We have a natural bridge to people who love the environment and we should use it. A church that has done a superb job of doing this is the Vineyard in Boise, Idaho. They started a campaign called “Let’s Tend the Garden” which reaches across the divide and says that we have something in common with the people who love the environment. This campaign has got national attention, and deservedly so.
I think if we actually used all the “bridges” that are built into the Bible we would do a much better job of reaching the lost. We are told to love the poor which is a bridge to liberal thinker. We are told to help bring financial equity to the disenfranchised which is a bridge to those who have no voice in government. And the list goes on and on.
What bridges can we find to reach out to people, to tell people that we are more like them than different from them? There is a chiasm between many people and the church, the world won’t build bridges to us, we need to build them so we can reach them with the message of the Gospel!