Come and Die: Something to Live For

My wife and I were visiting friends in one of our favorite towns in the Southeast. It’s a thriving and very hip downtown with a lot of shopping and restaurants and breweries and outdoor recreation opportunities. As we were leaving, we stopped by a coffee shop to grab a bite and a cup of life-blood.

Can you over hype coffee and donuts? After our experience at this quaint shop, my answer is “yes.” The coffee was some sort of fair trade organically grown bean from some far off mystic land with pink monkeys and Dodo birds. It had notes of . . . . acidity and blah. My donut was coated in delightful pistachios and green frosting and was absolutely . . . bitter. Two bites in and we both threw away our over-priced treats and drove away staring into an abyss of unfulfilled expectations. I couldn’t help but wonder if the people with whom we shared the space laughing and smiling were also secretly regretting their purchases but unable to bring themselves to admit we’ve all been duped and we are all pretending that this is superior to Eight O’Clock and a Hostess frosted honeybun. Staring into cold wiper blades, my wife said, “The emperor has no clothes.”

Are we giving church members and onlookers the same? Are we dispensing enthusiasm and joy hoping they’ll see past the veneer of a broken world and stick to a pew for a while? Maybe tithe a little while here? Are we promising that, yes, really our children’s ministry is growing and we are waiting while the new van gets to the dealership to spark our seniors ministry? “Glad you asked. Our next outreach team meeting is coming up and that very topic is on the docket.”

But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.20 But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.21 When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch,22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Did you hear that? Paul was beaten so badly they left him for dead, got up, and hiked 60 miles to another town to keep telling people about Jesus.

Without a mocha Java and savory pastry?

I wonder how much we’ve undersold the cost of discipleship to would-be pastors therefore, in turn, our people. Have we promised coffee shops and craft beer and glossed over Jesus’ tears and blood and follow me and you’ll be persecuted and die a thousand deaths? Have we really given ourselves and our people something to LIVE for? 

Memorial Day had me thinking; it’s the sacrifice that drives men (granted, not always) to be willing to serve and die for something they believe in. Maybe we’re not seeing more pastoral students because we haven’t expressed the cost enough?  Maybe the deaths they see pastors (like me) dying for are family feud deaths, not proactive missional dying. Maybe younger men and women look at the church as anemic and think, “What’s the use? Who wants to die for more programs, small groups, COVID protocols, and fellowship meals?”  There’s something about extreme cost in shared mission that is actually attractive . . . right? How much more so when it’s actually, not figuratively, the risen Savior we are following to death?

I do think the gospel is being preached. I also think we are preaching the gospel to ourselves over and over and over again in better and more beautiful ways. We’ve really got the gospel down. But are we exercising the faith that will take that gospel to people who haven’t heard it so that we have a common, compelling, working mission?

I’ve pastored a small church (60-80) and a medium sized church (200-300) and incurred some pretty severe wounds. So severe that I almost left the ministry altogether. Those were wounds inflicted by me and members of the churches over methodology. And honestly, these were mostly re-shuffled Christians from other past churches.

I’m currently working with a core group (re-shuffled Christians) developing a new church. We are wrestling through what our core values will be. Of course, being outward focused is at the top of the list. My wisdom-filled wife made the comment to me, “What church have we ever been involved in that was actually outreach focused?” That kinda stung since I had pastored a couple of those. As a friend noted, “whiteboards lie.” We can come up with all the tricks and programs and aspirations we desire and still be inept at befriending the friendless.

I heard a statistic this week that it would take 10 millennials to make up for the financial giving of one baby boomer. I believe it. I mean . . . coffee and donuts are expensive in these shops. But I don’t blame them. What have they been compelled to give towards besides their voracious and expensive desires? What have I communicated and toward what have I truly lived?

Could this be a result of not having a mission worth dying for? Or professing a Savior who bled and died, yet not following said Savior? Are we coddling and begging consumers who come to us with loads of better suggestions and excuses and not going to the highways and hedges where the people dwell who have never heard good news of the gospel? Do we walk past DQ for the greener bean of a Mystic Coffee?

I’ve spent a lot of time licking flesh wounds thinking they were the death of me. That’s not death. Death is a spear in the side, body weight tugging on wrists nailed with railroad-like spikes, and the face of all your friends and your Father turned away.

By dying to self and living by faith in Jesus, we actually find true life. And so do others.

Onward, Christian . . . ?