Easter Lip Lickin'

Easter Lip Lickin. I am sure you are wondering what the heck that even means.Well when the ham comes out of the oven and the twice baked potatoes are on my plate and I remember that it is Sunday and I can ignore my diet for this day my mouth starts watering and I start licking my lips in anticipation of the amazing meal I am about to devour.

But, that is not what I am talking about but it does set the tone. What I mean is that Easter is the one Sunday of the year that it seems churches and Christians everywhere start licking their lips. After all just think about all those people who will come into our church services on this day. Attendance will shoot up and the numbers of non-Christians entering our doors will be amazing.

This is our chance. So we take extra care in making sure the worship team is well rehersed and that the sermon is just right with the perfect mix of jokes and illustrations in order to present the Gospel as best we can and save as many as possible on this special day.

My problem is, I hate it all. It actually disgust me that we get this way. Because I think we have missed the point. I think it starts with a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the church gathering. (typically the church gathering is reffered to as the church but the church is actually the people so I will refer to it as the church gathering) For some reason we have decided that the church gathering is the place people come to be saved. But how can that be? If the church is saved people then who are we trying to save when saved people gather? hmmm Did you follow that?

You want to know my opinion on why evangelism is so weak and failing in America? Well if not then you shouldn't be wasting your time reading my blog. I think the biggest problem we have is that most Christians feel that their role in evangelism is to invite someone to a church gathering. Once we get our neighbor or co-worker in the doors of a church gathering then we have done our job and the rest is up to the pastor.

That's just stupid. You don't invite someone to a church gathering to get them saved you invite them because you have done life with that person and they have seen the love of Christ in you and come to know Christ through you and now they need that fellowship with other believers.

That isn't to say that we can't or shouldn't invite non-Christians to a church gathering. I just think that the church gathering should be for Christians. It should be a place where the body of Christ comes together and each person can share what God has done in and through them during the week. A place where we can use the gifts God has given each of us to encourage and bless each other. A place where we can hold each other accountable and be honest with each other about what is going on in our lives. And this is a whole other blog, but I'm guessing not too many church gatherings actually do that.

So instead of licking our lips because the attendance will be up tomorrow and doing everything we can to "get them" on this one day of the year, maybe just maybe we should be training up each other to actually do evangelism every day. And it isn't some difficult formula. If we just went about our day with the intent of loving others the way Christ loves them, evangelism would happen without us even thinking about it. And then we would see people coming to know Christ 365 days of the year instead of waiting for Easter.

Just my thoughts. Happy Easter