Inreach or Outreach?

Blog Update #3

­­­­The main reason I started this blog was so I could let other people see the triumphs as well as the downfalls of my faith and hopefully that I could inspire them. Many times at the YF (Youth Fellowship) I go to, the youth Pastor Rick has said about how as soon as you think you are okay and that your life is perfect that’s when you are wrong. We have to constantly move forward in our Christian faith and not just to become a Christian and go to all the Christian youth things because it seems “cool” and everyone else is doing it. The way I think about it is that the day I feel like my life is perfect and that there is no more I can do, that is the day of my downfall and the day I become furthest from God.

In this world there will always be more to do. There will still be the unsaved, the homeless, the penniless, the drug addicts, people who haven’t heard the word of God and millions of others. As Jesus said “Stand up for me against world opinion and I'll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I'll cover for you?" (Matthew 10 v 32). 


So if I say that my Christian life is perfect and there is no more I can do, I would be denying the fact that this world IS SCREWED UP. We all need to open our eyes and see the bigger picture of the problems. Too many Christians in today’s society are sitting on their backsides and doing nothing, the Good Livers, who go to church on a Sunday, their little prayer meetings and study groups all the while driving past people who haven’t heard the word of God, or people who have all sorts of problems. They believe that sitting in Church praying that people will come in and that people will be suddenly saved and they believe that that is enough. It isn’t. We have to go out to them. We have to go into the dangerous places that nobody else will. We have to tell people of the message.

BUT. I don’t mean that we should go out and be like the people who stand with banners, sandwich boards and loudspeakers shouting passages out of the King James Version and scaring everyone off by shoving leaflets in people’s faces. Shouting about hellfire and brimstone won’t work. 


I believe that it is better to be nice to them and act friendly towards them and not to whip out the Bible or start chanting verses at them, the stereotypical Christian. If we look at it from their eyes we would be scared off. Would it not be nicer to be given a free hot drink and a sit down for a chat if you want with someone who acts very down to earth and doesn’t shove their Christianity in your face? As Christians we are part of the most dangerous religion in the world, just because we believe in forgiveness for anyone and unconditional love from God. Is it not better to speak of a loving God rather than condemning them to eternal hell and damnation?

We do not have the authority to judge other people, we all have our imperfections and our flaws. As Jesus said about the woman who had committed adultery and was going to be stoned "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Even though  Jesus was the only one who was without sin. He didn’t throw a stone at her, he showed her compassion.


 If a non-christian sees a sign or a banner saying “Where will you be in eternity? Smoking or Non-Smoking?”, they are hardly going to think “Oh, I better get saved right now!” That won’t happen. Condemning people gives churches bad names, making it look as if all that they do is judge. On the other hand if a church is handing out free tea-break packs and coffee then the church is going to seem more welcoming, unlike the churches that go about shoving leaflets in your face. 


I know this first hand from feeling the extreme dislike for this person I didn’t even know who shoved a leaflet in front of me. I even saw people crossing the street just to get away from them! I don’t think that that is a good way for people to see churches. There is also the flipside to the coin.­ The Churches that do nothing.

Yes they may do hampers for people in the church, the odd Christmas card to people subscribed to their mailing list and the odd “outreach” event inside their church, but that is it! They don’t go out on the streets 52 weeks of the year doing nice things like free tea and coffee, an example I already stated, and building relationships with your local community.


 How nice would it be to be walking down the main street in the wind and rain and someone offering a free hot drink and it’s not as if the churches that aren’t out there don’t have the money! I’ve seen and heard how much money these churches have and I ask “Where does it all go? And is it used on PROPER outreach?”, one answer I got was “Well the money is going towards the building.” And I thought “What about the other thousands of pounds? And will the building be used for outreach or just a place for the people from the church to hang out?”

And to finish off this rather long “rant”. Here is my conclusion. I believe that to try and be like Jesus and try to follow in his footsteps we must do what he did. Reach out to people, especially those who need it.  Jesus said “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.” (Matthew 10 v38) Even in his last moments on the cross Jesus was doing outreach by taking our sin upon him. His life was dedicated to reaching out to people.


He taught people how to live their lives in a Holy way, not by shouting at them about burning in hell, but by sitting down and telling them stories. He humbled himself to the lowest in Society and even went and was with people who were classed as “dangerous” and “unclean” by society. I believe we should all try to be more like him, especially in the way of outreach, and take up our cross and follow him.

Music, Silence and Time

I love listening to music, I do it every single day. As soon as I get home I fly straight onto my laptop and the first thing I do is stick on some music just so that I don't have to listen to the silence. Even now while I'm writing this blog I'm listening to music. Silence is a very hard thing to find as there is always noise around. Whether it's from cars or from music. I'm always surrounded by noise. 


I also spend a lot of time picking out my favourite tracks and putting them into different playlists. This thing "time" is something I find very hard to give over to God. It's not like I have a busy schedule it's just that I always seem to find something to do other than giving some time to God. The "Quiet time" is what I find hardest. The silence scares me a little as I always seem to be surrounded by noise but when I get away from the noise what do I do? I don't hear anything in the silence. I don't hear the whisper of God that so many people speak of hearing in their quiet time. When I hear people talk about hearing the voice of God I have this strange optimism about it. Are the people who talk about hearing God's voice to large audiences really doing it just to glorify themselves?


I have a lot of questions but the main one that always seems to get back to me is "Is it wrong for me to question other peoples experiences in their Christian lives?". I believe everyone must at least once question someone else's faith. I do not have the right to judge other people, especially about their faith, as I'm not perfect, but our human instinct is to continuously judge. We're only human. We all make mistakes and we all boast about certain aspects of our faith but keep other parts of our faith that we know we haven't got it all right.


This is where the flaw to my faith comes back in. I don't spend as much time with God as I should, even though I know how easy it is to spend time with him. It's just trying to get into the habit of doing it every day. In the past I've tried it but then one night I'd feel too tired and say "I'll do it tomorrow" but the old saying comes into play "Tomorrow never comes.". Now since I've written this blog I'm going to try and spend more time with God and I hope that those who read this blog are inspired to start to spend more time with God as well. 

Footprints in the Snow

People may not believe this, but I think about things, a lot and the other day as I was walking up the road I could see all the other peoples footprints imprinted in the snow, each set of footprints having their own specific direction. Some went this way, some went the other, whilst some just went completely against the stream. This got me thinking.

Are our Christian lives not like that? We all have our separate paths to take in our walk in faith. There were some footprints that just stopped suddenly and then went off one direction. I pictured this as a person who is unsure about whether to take the path or not or to keep going with the flow and being pushed along by the stream. There were also foot prints going against this stream, this made me think of the battle that, as Christians, we are fighting. Whether we know it or not. It isn't a physical battle, but a spiritual battle against evil.

This linked in a bit with my life. The intern in my church recently asked me if I wanted to take more of a leadership role in what some may call "Sunday School" but for people the same age as me. I answered straight away with a response of "Aye", or if some of you don't know, it means yes. He then said to me about doing talks for it which really hit a nervous spot in me. I have never done a talk for any sort of Christian youth so I'm not exactly sure about how to go about it.

So this whole week my thought process seems to always go back to the subject of becoming a leader in the youth, it's really been a big thing to me, especially since I'm only 14, which I believe is still very young to be becoming a leader, even if to other people it seems like something small and everyday but in my mind it is a big step. I've been praying about it and I "facebooked" the Pastor of the Amadeo Vineyard in Arizona, Ben Cloud, and said to him about how I was a bit nervous about it (among other things). His reply was exactly what I needed to hear. It may have been simple but it hit home.

"Take the plunge - jump into servant-leadership!"

Just those few words were enough to inspire me to get into "servant-leadership". Just hope that when I do the talk that I'll say what the guys need to hear and that it will inspire them to do things that are out of the box to them.

It also linked in as I am fighting a battle against my basic instinct that makes me want to back out of doing leadership, but if it's what God is leading me to then I should just do it. If I didn't do it and it was my path, would I be defying God's will? I believe that Ben's statement can also be true with a lot of other parts of Christian life as we should just "Take the plunge" and "jump" head-first into any opportunity that arises.