Someone tweeted me a message that disturbed me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an overly...

Someone tweeted me a message that disturbed me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an overly sensitive blogger. But the response on twitter was different. I'd written, asking for people to pray in preparation for Orphan Sunday (Nov. 6!). I asked that we pray the Church would grow in its passion for serving the fatherless. The end, right?

A responder didn't think so. They wrote, "How about we pray instead that the Church would grow in its passion to witness to the unsaved?? Refocus. It'sallboutJesus." 

It stuck with me for some reason, and I had to wrestle (on paper) through what they said. Here's the result.

Dear Twitter Friend,

I find it hard to be gracious to you at the moment, cause I'm still kind of riled. But I freely admit that is wrong and sinful. (Forgive me?) Because Jesus was and continues to be so ridiculously and unforgettably gracious to me, how can I be anything less to anyone else? Honestly, that would be a most hypocritical and dumb thing for me to do. The Gospel is a lived message, which He lived first. It isn't enough for me to hold it like a creed; I have to hold it even closer, as a creed that decides how I live.

Now, it's just one tweet, and typically I'd just read it and go about my merry way. But I realized that I, too, have thought like that at times. I've been tempted to get behind one specific form of ministry and make that "mine"…kind of like one would claim a football team…except in this game you talk smack by talkin' holy. 

There's a lot of issues interlaced with this.

1. Evangelism packs more punch if it is undergirded by service. I realize that men like Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and Billy Graham have been used to bring thousands of people to sit at God's table. This is important and in many cultures, an effective tool. I'm not going to toss out streetpreaching just because it isn't my personal cup-of-tea. (See point 2.) But more often than not, I see people humbled and brought into the Kingdom by the Gospel spoken in conjunction with the serving hands of God's people.

When the Gospel was brought to India's caste of "Untouchables" (or the "Dalits," meaning "crushed") it spread like wildfire because, for the first time, someone took notice of them. There were men like Alexander Duff who said, "I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is One who cares." There were missionaries who gave all they had. Like Jesus left the respectable company of the Pharisees to reach out to those festering with leprosy, His people show His beauty when they reach out to shake hands with the Ones You Never Touch. (Now India's lowest caste composes 70-80 percent of India's Christians.) The Gospel must not only be a message we preach, but a message we live.

2. If we rally behind one cause and feel possessive of it, we're missing the point. If we limit ourselves religiously to evangelism only, we must wonder why we're doing evangelism in the first place. Is it because we love people? Because we have a heart for the lost? Because we want to be imitators of Christ? Or even simply evangelizing because God is glorified in it? I doubt any of those can be our true motivation if we are only willing to speak the Gospel, without serving and offering unmerited love.

Also, when we attach ourselves to any specific ministry-type and tout that as the "only way" to bring glory to God, we've become total legalists. We should stop pretending to be Gospel-centered, cause that attitude is a complete dysfunction of the Gospel.

Evangelism isn't in competition with everything else; it should be the bones and service (like feeding the hungry and caring for orphans) should be the muscle. Without "the bones," our service becomes short-sighted and limited to this lifetime. Without "muscle," our evangelism becomes rigidly compassionless, and ceases to make sense. (Can the Ultimate Compassion of the Gospel make sense to people if we preach it without compassion? Really?)

Yes, the Gospel is supreme. Jesus is first. This is not an act of humanitarianism to "make the world a better place" or help us feel like better people. This world is not our final hope. Jesus is.

But if the Gospel is truly supreme, we understand the bottomline:

Love preaches the Gospel from any pulpit it can find. But Love also cannot sit by in perfect rest while its neighbor is hungry, cold, and crushed by oppressors. It would then cease to be Love.

Our bones need muscle. Our muscles need bone.

[Thanks for taking the time to read this, friend.]