A Wee Luke 10 Nugget

I like to read books about how Jesus is building his church around the world.*

I am finding a recurring theme of people (Western and especially international, educated and illiterate, men and women) applying Jesus’ words in Luke 10:1-12 to see what happens today.

Some stories are so jaw-dropping they are suspicious – like 500 churches planted in a year**. Some stories are atypical in other ways – like a wheelchair-bound grocer who is dying of a degenerative disease seeing numerous churches bubble up throughout his relational network and beyond.

But should we really be surprised? After all, Jesus promised to make his disciples fishers of men if they followed him. And Jesus showed on at least two occasions that He definitely knows how to fish abundantly (John 21:4-8, Luke 5:1-11). It makes sense that we’d find church-net-breaking-abundance through obedience as well.

Anyway, here’s just one of my take-aways from studying Luke 10: The harvest is not only abundant (10:2), but it’s also urgent.

I conclude “urgent” largely because, among other things, Jesus essentially tells his disciples to keep moving if they are not received (10-11). There are more “persons of peace” in other towns waiting. It makes sense to focus your limited time and energy on people who want to know God…

…and respect those who don’t / aren’t ready. Is not this “person of peace” approach a loving contrast to battering-ram evangelism where you don’t stop till “your convert” relents?

So what are some of your observations as you read Luke 10:1-10? Anything goes.

More importantly, who of your friends would pair up with you to try this yourself? I’ll keep you posted how it goes with me…

*As examples, I’m currently reading Church Planting Movements (David Garrison) and An Army of Ordinary People (Felicity Dale) – both fascinating and encouraging.

** But to top that, here’s another one I read just yesterday about 4,000 churches in 3 years coming out of East Africa. If it weren’t for personal verification from personal friends on some of these, I’d most likely dismiss them as nonsense

Jim & Casper Go to Church – Book Review

Ever thought to hire someone to go to church with you? No, this isn’t desperation-evangelism. Far from it. A former pastor and executive director of Off the Map, Jim Henderson hires an atheist acquaintance, Matt Casper, to visit churches across the country because he wants to learn from his observations and experiences.

Jim and Casper fascinated and refreshed me. You’ve probably heard the saying, “things are clearer from the outside looking in.” The experiences of Jim and Casper illustrate the cliche well. Casper’s point of view is provoking and intelligent. His ability to hone in on aspects of church culture that I gloss over from familiarity was stimulating. I respect Casper for approaching the project (visiting house churches, mega-churches, and everything in between) with an open mind and quickly giving credit and praise where it was due. Yet with nothing to lose and honesty as his guiding principle, Casper says things I’ve rarely heard about church let alone said within church, and thus consistently and effectively also fells herds of sacred cows. Perhaps most challenging was Casper repeatedly returning to the question, “Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”

Besides keeping me laughing at Jim & Casper’s humor, this book had me wondering, “Yeah, why do churches do that / say that? Where does that come from? How are we perpetuating empty practices?”

The tagline for this book is “A believer, an atheist, an unlikely friendship…” Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book was eavesdropping on the relationship develop between Jim & Casper. They show that relationships between atheists and believers don’t have to be unlikely at all.

This book was well worthwhile and to the church’s benefit to read.