Please Throw More Church Members Out!

Evangelicals largely do not live missionally, because many are taught you must avoid being to close with bad people. I see this a lot in the Home School Community.

My wife actually had a conversation with a 50 year old lady who said this at a ladies bible study,

"You can't be best friends with a non-christian because they might draw you away from your faith."

Lynn said,

"Are you kidding me? You have been in church for over 40 years. If being a friend to an unbeliever will take your faith away, there is something very wrong with that faith."

That is the kind of thinking and preaching going on these days. Scary! How can we live as missionaries to this culture and place with that attitude? I can assure you its not Biblical, and it's not how Jesus lived. He ate with sinners, and that REALLY chaffed those who preached this very same crazy idea in His day. They criticized, "He eats with sinners"

"For whatever reason, the church at large has theologized the idea of personal holiness to exclude normal interaction with the world. Many churches we work with have an alarming theology of "extraction" that creates a Christian peer pressure to move away form the world....." (Tangible Kingdom. Hugh Halter, pg 136. 2008, Jossey-Bass)

"I wonder how God might lead us if we were more concerned about being a “friend of sinners” than a friend to those inside our church or denomination?"
(Tangible Kingdom. Hugh Halter, pg 46. 2008, Jossey-Bass)

We pat people on the back who are totally wrapped up in the church life and affairs. Those who are in the building doing things, and running programs all the time. Maybe its time to toss them out and tel them to get a real life, and a real mission.

In Luke 10:2 where Jesus said we should pray for the the Lord to "Send Forth/out" workers into the harvest field, is interesting. The Greek word for "Send out" is "Ekballo"- and it means to "toss out", "cast out", "throw out. Interestingly, the same word is used to describe Jesus casting our demons.

We need to pray that God "throw out" church members wrapped up in the church place to much. We would be doing them a favor. We are robbing them form some tremendous joy by interacting with people missionally in the community.