The Worship Artist

I was reading J.I. Packer’s Knowing God last week, came across this section that was quote convicting. Can you say “amen” or “ouch?”

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians–I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians–go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirt of those Christians–alas, they are many–whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and brining up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

If I may, let me brag on my church for a little bit. Many churches forget the importance of simply being an active body in the community. The philosophy is generally that the church should only do things that either uplift the body or vocally presents the gospel to the community.

Mid last year we found out that a World Champion Sand Sculptor lives in our community. We commissioned him to create a sculpture over the course of 3 days on our church parking lot. On the 3rd day we had a large festival with local bands (which were not “Christian” by the way) food vendors, and games/events for children through the day; ultimately climaxing with the finalization of the sand sculpture.

We bounced around the idea of doing some biblical scene with the sand sculpture but we ultimately decided to have a patriotic sculpture because it’s some common ground that the community as a whole could appreciate and share in. Some have asked, “What’s the purpose of doing this?” or “Why isn’t the Gospel being presented?” The purpose was to provide an event for the community (being a functioning body in the community) making connections with people and the Gospel was not being presented in the general sense. Hopefully believers in the church would be a “presentation” enough and if conversations went that route then great… but we were not interested in pulling people onto our parking lot, trapping them in one place, and pulling out the megaphone.

The event was very sucessful. Around 1,000 people were there, connections were made, and hopefully lasting relationships. I would encourage Christians (individually) and church leaders (corporately) to find ways to be activly involved in their community. Maybe it’s as simple as going to the town hall meetings, finding needs that should be met, or hosting a community event. Whatever it is… be involved.