Love People into the Kingdom of God

 May 29, 2024

Wednesday

Several years ago the Navy Band came to play their Christmas program at our church. We advertised on the radio and in the newspaper. They have come many times since then but the first time elicited a phone call  from someone who saw our ad. He asked me what was going to happen. I told him that the Navy Band would present their Christmas program. (It was spectacular!) Then he asked a very peculiar question, "And then what are you going to do?" I knew what he was asking. Too many times churches have events that seem like they are just fun events, then, with a captured audience preach for thirty minutes while pressuring people to become Christians. You see, what appears to be a service to the community becomes a means of getting people to buy our product. Yes, I know that it common in businesses but we should not need to bait and switch people if the gospel is as essential as we say it is.

While in college I was invited to go with some friends to a Billy Graham movie. They didn't tell me that a preacher would stand and start preaching after the movie was over. I felt deceived. I got up and left while this preacher was preaching and tried to take as many people with me on the way out. I wasn't a Christian at the time.

Now, I am not opposed to showing people that we love them. I am not opposed to inviting people to church at an event at the church. I am not opposed to doing something for my neighbors and inviting them to an event at the church. Everyone expects that they will be invited when they come to a special event like the Navy Band. No one is offended. They also expect preaching when they come to church. There is no bait and switch here.

Many people only see marketing when the church advertises one thing and makes it into something else. They do not see that we love them. They think we are using them. When they come and find that we are using an event to get to know them, they understand that. They realize what we are doing but it isn't offensive. Yes, the gospel is offensive but what we are doing is not the gospel. We are using deception to present the gospel. The gospel doesn't need this type of help.

Could there be people who get saved in our bait and switch events. Of course! But that will always happen because God has drawn them already. You see, fast food is only delicious to the hungry. They have already been made hungry before they arrive. We do not know what else could have happened that wouldn't have turned off those who weren't hungry. 

Why do churches do these things? Because believers are not sharing the gospel with those around them. They do not know their neighbors well enough to have a spiritual conversation with them. They haven't shown love enough to have that conversation. In our reclusiveness, we are protecting ourselves at all costs. How will they know the love of the Lord if we don't have that love for them?

So, I answered the man who asked what I would do after the Navy Band, "I'm going home. We don't have anything else planned." I don't know if he came but if he did, we didn't bait and switch.

Strange, but Jesus didn't use a bait and switch when He called His disciples. He said:

Matthew 4:19 (NASB 2020) ¹⁹ And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of people.”

People are saved because God gives them faith and they accept it. Anyone who claims to be saved otherwise isn't truly saved. 

Ephesians 2:8–9 (NASB 2020) ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So, just love people into God's kingdom.