No Insiders Allowed

As usual, I was waiting several rings to see if someone else was going to answer the phone. Just before the call was directed to the answer machine, I realized that today I was the only person in the office. I reached for the phone and my notepad at the same time, sure that I would just be taking a message for someone else.

The caller never did tell me his name, nor did he ask me mine. He baited me by telling me he was new to our community and was looking for a new church home. He just wanted to talk to a live voice(which is pretty much all you get out of me on the phone) before he decided to visit our church. I’m not a good salesman, and I have never meet a good salesman that I would want to spend any time with away from the sales floor. My wife, in act of defiance and wisdom, will not step foot on a car dealership, real estate office, or electronic superstore until the very last minute, when we have already done our research from the safe confines of our home. So although I love my church, I knew I wasn’t suited to ‘sell’ this guy on the benefits of attending our church.

Well, luck or favor was on my side, because this guy was not interested in ‘buying’. He immediately went off about our church, the church in general, and how society and the world was being harmed by our message and focus. As he tore at everything our church stood for, I must admit, it was good to hear that our church was having such a global impact! Normally when we get calls or emails like this we end the communication as soon as possible, but I was enjoying this guy. Yes, he was off the wall with his exaggerations and hyperbole, comparing teaching to brainwashing, discipline to control, love to manipulation. But, I’ve heard that stuff before, and it sounded like he was reciting from someone else’s skewed view of Christianity. What intrigued me was what the man was trying to say, and I found great truth in the unsaid longing of his heart.

He felt that the church, and because I answered the phone, my church, had made him an outsider and was trying very hard to keep him as one. We have our weekly meetings, our songs and radio stations, even our own television stations all geared to…us, the insiders. He desperately wanted to know why we had turned a message about creator loving creation into sophisticated, orchestrated weekly meetings designed to please insiders and at the same time, even if done without malice, keep the outsiders as…well, outsiders. We dress alike, have our own book sections in Barnes & Nobles, our businesses marked with the fish symbol, our coffee houses, our amusement parks, even our own political representatives!!!

But, what this man, who dropped as many F-bombs on me as my high school football coach, was picking up on, was all we really have been doing with Christian influence, money, and power, was clearly making our churches and bible studies as havens for insiders.

Well I must admit, the man who ended up hanging on me before I could tell him that he was making more sense than most 3-point sermons on a Sunday morning, sure got me thinking, and now I’ve decided to become an outsider. No, I’m not leaving Christ (In case you didn’t notice, the only time he visits the inside is to knock the place around). Instead, I’m on a search to find where he really is, and just as important, where I should be.

So consider this your invitation, come join me outside the walls of plastic Christianity, and let’s live life as Christ lived his…on the outside.