Sick and Tired of “Phony Baloney” Religion

There are many people who have lost confidence in the church because of the abuses and misuses of a few. I think it is safe to say that the television evangelist debacles of the 1980’s have made the job of the church more difficult. These days every shortcoming in the church of Christ is spread out over the media to such a degree that, to the outsider, it makes all of us look corrupt. There is a cynicism towards the church today that causes many people to turn us off before we ever get a chance to let them know how wonderful Christ is. I believe that anyone who has the opportunity to see Jesus as He really is will want Him. He is that wonderful. He is that loving and kind. The problem is that there is a distorted portrait of Christ out there that causes people to push away. This explains why conventional modes of outreach that were effective in days gone by are no longer effective today. When you mention Christ or the church, people in our society immediately think of a fallen evangelist or the latest scandal in the church world. If they cannot trust the preacher with their money or the priest with their children, why should they listen when we try to share life with them? The truth of the matter is the day of hard sell, cold turkey evangelism is over. The only way we will ever get people to listen to us is if we take the time to develop a relationship with them. The key is trust. We can only influence people if there is a bond of trust in place. Trust can only be developed through relationship. Relationships can only happen as we are connected with each other. It is the relationship that builds the bridge of trust. Our society as a whole is so sick and tired of the “phony baloney” religion they see all around them. Quite frankly, so am I. People are looking for something real. As they develop a relationship with real believers and get to know them they will become exposed to genuine Christianity. They will realize that Christians are real people just like they are, not perfect people, real people with real issues. They will see how God helps the believer with those issues. They will see the difference Christ makes in a real persons life.

A Vehicle for Discipleship

Jesus, just before he ascended to the right hand of the throne of God, called together His closest friends. These were people He’d been spending time with, the people that He had been discipling unto Himself. When He got them together He said “Between now and when I come back again, here’s what I want you to be doing, I want you to go out from here and make disciples of all men.” This is the challenge that Jesus gave to those believers that day. Not only to them, that challenge comes down as a commission to every born again believer from then until now. You and I have been commissioned to make disciples of all men. Jesus went on to say, “Here’s how you do it. I want you to teach them the things that I have taught you.” Jesus had spent about three a half years with these men discipling them unto Himself. He didn’t disciple them through his great teachings only, although it was the greatest teaching the world had ever seen. Jesus discipled those men by spending time with them, by developing a friendship with them. He discipled them through relationship. Basically what He was saying, “Like I have discipled you, now I want you to go out and disciple other people.” That’s called the Great Commission. That’s what God wants all believers to be doing. Then Jesus gave a promise. He said, “If you will do this, I will be with you always even to the end of the world.” What a fantastic promise by the Lord Jesus Christ. Basically what He is saying is, “If you will go out and do unto others as I have done unto you; make them disciples unto me, then I will be with you.” This is what connecting points is designed to do. Connecting Points is a vehicle where discipleship can take place.

God is all about Connecting

We were created for God. Our very purpose for existing is to have a relationship with the Lord. “You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created” Rev. 4:11 (NLT). The problem is most people do not have a relationship with Him. People need to be connected to God. Connecting Points is the process that we use to connect people with God. This is what God is passionate about. He desires to connect with people more than anything else. God makes His passionate desire known in Hosea 6:6. Here He cries out through the prophet: “I don’t want your sacrifices – I want your love! I don’t want your offerings – I want you to know me!”(LB). Do you hear His cry? “I want you to know me!” That is what He wanted then and that is what He wants now. God wants to connect with people. That is what we will say to the people in our community. God wants you to know Him. This is God’s number one priority. “He is a God who is passionate about His relationship with you” Exodus 34:14 (NLT). God is not interested in just a casual acquaintance. He wants a relationship. This is what Calvary is all about. God sent His Son to pay a heavy price that we might know Him personally and intimately. It was His plan from the beginning of time and it is still His plan today. The reason Connecting Points is so important is that the priority is building an atmosphere where people can become connected with God. God wants to connect with His people.

One Last Thing

When you break down the word connecting and trace it back to its Latin roots, it breaks down like this:
“con” = together
“necto” = to bind. (Roughly to bind together.)
“ing” = a suffix that expresses continuation.
The word connecting literally means a continual binding together. This is the purpose of the church—to continually bind people together with God and with each other. How important is this to God? He showed us in Matthew Chapter 28. Here Jesus gave His last instructions to His followers. He had spoken many things to His followers in the three plus years He spent with them. But this was the last thing He would say to them on this side of eternity. This alone places a priority on these words. It’s the “one last thing” model. If you forget everything else don’t forget this one thing. He said “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” This is what the church is to be doing until He comes back. Many churches have lost focus of this. What is the purpose of the church? What are we supposed to be doing? If we lose sight of our purpose we are in danger of becoming a self-centered social club whose function is raising money to meet our own interests. We turn into a feel good society that values only what happens inside the walls of the church with little or no concern for those without. This sounds a lot like the religious institutions that Christ denounced so vehemently during His ministry. You can almost sense Him crying out just before He left: Whatever you do don’t be like that. Don’t forget what you are to be doing. Don’t forget your purpose. You are to be making disciples of all men. You are to be connecting people with God and each other. It is our prime directive. God help us to be a connecting church!

What is Our Purpose?

Purpose has become quite vogue in the church of the twenty-first century. This is a good thing. Rick Warren from the great Saddleback Church in southern California has impacted the body of Christ in a powerful way with his book The Purpose Driven Life. I truly believe that this book is a word from the Lord for the church of Christ in these days. This book did for the people in the church what his previous book (The Purpose Driven Church) did for the church as a whole. For too long too many wandered aimlessly through life with no real sense of purpose. This “purpose driven” emphasis has greatly energized those who have embraced it. The purpose of Connecting Points can be summed up in two words. Those words are communion and community. This is God’s purpose for the church. Communion has to do with connecting with God and community is connecting with each other. This principle was illustrated beautifully by Christ in Luke 10:27. When asked about the most important commandment, Jesus responded with a two-fold answer. “Love the Lord with all that is within you and love your neighbor as yourself.” In many respects all the law is summed up in these two expectations. Life is certainly more complex than just this one concept, but when it comes to the church we can focus on these words of Christ as our purpose. What are we to be doing? We are connecting people with God and with each other. The work of the church is connecting, connecting with God (communion) and connecting with each other (community).

Have We Reached Our Full Potential?

There is a fundamental question that every Christian should ask. “What does the Lord require of me?” As you are faithful to minister, this question will be answered in the hearts of those precious people that God has given you to lead in these days. Our message is simple. Just be who God made you to be. Do what God made you to do. See yourself as a God-called minister He wants to use to connect with people in your sphere of influence. See yourself as a witness for Christ by connecting with people, outside the church based on similar interests, and influencing them with your lifestyle and testimony. That’s it. That is what reaching your full potential all is about. That is how Connecting Points will change the culture of your church. When we change the pulpit into a place for equipping; when the people in the pews see themselves as the minister and not just the supporter of the ministry that is done from the pulpit; when we realize that the community is our congregation, and we begin to connect them to God and us; when we mobilize our people to evangelize our own culture in our own community; we can expect God to say, “Well done, you have done what you could.” This is when we can declare in our hearts, “We have reached our full potential for Christ.”

Balance is the Key

How do we find balance as we attempt to redefine evangelism? It is shown beautifully by Christ Himself in Acts Chapter Eight when He said, “You will be witnesses unto me, first in Jerusalem, then in Judea, and Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the world.” Here, Christ shows the biblical balance between missions and evangelism. We must do both. But, our priority should always be on evangelism. Notice He said, “First in Jerusalem.” The term “first” denotes priority. It does not belittle the others. They are important too. It only prioritizes Jerusalem. We are responsible for reaching the whole world but not at the expense of neglecting our own community. When we get things in the right priority, it enhances the whole. Think about it. The more people we reach in our own community and add to the church, the more resources we have to reach other cultures for Christ.
On the other hand, if we, as leaders, allow our people to go through life doing outreaches and going on missions trips and thinking they are doing evangelism when all the while they are ignoring the people in their own culture and their own community, we have done them a great disservice. This is one of the main reasons why many churches in the United States are on the decline while the church overseas is growing.
On the mission field, great effort is put into presenting the Gospel in a way that is relevant and tailor-made for any given culture. We should embrace the same principle here at home. We are living in a day when “hard sell” evangelism seldom works. Business people understand what that means. Hard sell is when you say I have a product. If you want it, you must come to where I am on my terms, at a time convenient to me and you can have it. This is how most churches operate. We spend our time trying to figure out a way to get people into our church. We want to reach them in a way we feel comfortable with. We want to reach them on our terms and on our schedule. If you can come to our church at our predetermined times and find Christ the way we dictate then you have a chance. Everybody else is just hard out of luck.
How arrogant! No wonder people are suspicious. Connecting Points is designed to work more like what sales people would call a “soft sell” approach. We are saying to people in our community we will come to where you are and do it at a time convenient for you. We will not be dogmatic, intrusive or demanding. In other words, we will consider your feelings. What Connecting Points will do is bring true evangelism back to the local church by mobilizing people to reach their community. This is done primarily by connecting with people based on similar interests. This non- conventional approach is much softer and we feel much more effective today.

Redefining Evangelism

Evangelism! This is one of the most misunderstood terms in the church today. What is evangelism? There are many definitions that have been embraced by church leaders but what I want to focus on is what our people think when they think of evangelism. When the average church member thinks of evangelism, they think of reaching people in some other culture than the one they live in. The reason for this is, it is much easier to reach out to people we do not know. Most people think of evangelism as reaching out to the homeless downtown or the people groups in lands far away. This is fine if you live with the homeless or among the people in that foreign land. What about the people in your sphere of influence? This is a much more difficult proposition. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them is the fact that this type of evangelism comes home to where we live. We know them and they know us. There is a responsibility and accountability attached that we do not have to face at the homeless outreach or on the missions trip. Connecting Points is designed to redefine evangelism in the hearts of our people. Evangelism becomes connecting with people in our own culture and influencing them to Christ with our testimony and our lifestyle.

Culture Changers!

We used to see mobilization of people as recruiting more people to do something in the church. If we can get 50 people to attend prayer meeting and 25 to go on visitation, then we have mobilized the people. We must redefine mobilization as empowering people to see themselves as God’s ministers and making connections with the people in their community. Talk about reaching our full potential. Imagine several hundred ministers from your church taking ownership and responsibility of people all over your community. Imagine them working with the Holy Spirit to move people toward Christ by their testimony and lifestyle. Now that’s what I call mobilization! This new understanding of old concepts will change the culture of our church. After all, isn’t that what we are called to do? We are culture changers. This is what Christ did when He was on this earth. The culture of His day was primarily religious with the hierarchy and hypocrisy that so often accompanies it. Christ came and changed the culture to one of relationship and genuine reality. He faced much opposition but with the help of the Holy Spirit was able to accomplish what He came to do. He changed the culture. Through Connecting Points God is helping us change the culture around us by changing the culture of our churches. It cannot happen overnight. Connecting Points is a process, not a program. We don’t need another program. We need the process of the Holy Spirit to work His plan in us. Once the people in our church begin to make connections with people in the community, we can help them get connected to God and each other. We know this is happening when we see the pulpit becoming the equipping place, the pews becoming the ministers, and the community becoming our congregation. Connecting Points is designed to make this happen.

You are God's Minister

Jesus did not spend His time trying to get people into the temple; He went to where they were. In the church we spend most of our time and efforts developing ways to get people into our church. Connecting Points says it is our job to go to where they are at and make a connection with them there. This can only be done when we begin seeing ourselves as God’s minister. Most people have no problem understanding God placed the pastor in His church, but they have trouble seeing themselves in the same respect. Just like it is no accident the pastor is in the church he is in, it is no accident the people live where they live and work where they work. This is God’s doing. Why? He loves those people and He wants to make a connection with them. That is why He placed the Christian there. We must understand God has us there on purpose. We have been strategically planted there by the Lord. Most Christians think they live where they live because of a real estate agent. Wrong! Who is in charge of this thing, God or the real estate agent? The people in our lives are not just casual acquaintances. They are the object of our calling. In a very real sense they are our congregation. Once again, we have no trouble at all understanding the pastor has a congregation because we understand that he is God’s minister. Most believers never give any thought to the idea they may have a congregation of their own. Once we begin to see ourselves as God-called ministers, it only makes sense that we would have our own congregation. Who is our congregation? The people in our sphere of influence. The people at the job, in the neighborhood, even the un-churched in our family. If they are in our life, they are our congregation. Connecting Points mobilizes people to make connections with people in their sphere of influence based on similar interests.