We have now said, for years, that the church needs to get out of its walls and into the street. The problem is: this is not enough.
We have people leaving churches, changing church expressions, meeting in homes and workplaces, but the life of Jesus is still not seeping into the world, at least not enough.
We need more from “the church.” We need “the church” to begin living their unique destiny as followers of Jesus audaciously. We need people who are not sleep-walking in religion or incapacitated by the franticness of our Disneyland culture. We need people who know who they are, who love Jesus more than life, who are willing to bring fresh and new ideas and innovations that change society. We need people who influence, not toward religion or church-going, but toward Jesus, and life, and hope, and faith, and transformation, and the power of the Spirit. We need people who have passion and are not afraid to step out and speak up about those things (including Jesus) that are burning on their hearts.
We need Change Agents for Jesus. We don’t need evangelists, just Jesus-people who live and act in a way that brings about change, that lifts the hopeless, that cares for the tired, that releases the oppressed and that simply says—“this is Jesus at work.” “Follow Him!” Those that need to and want to, will follow Him.
We need a church that does not look like “church” in any way, shape, or form. We need an uprising of “heretics” who break all the rules but glorify Jesus’ love and presence in the process.
We need people who are authentic and real and without the need for pretense. We need people that others can relate to and see Jesus through—weaknesses and all.
We need to become the trend setters.
Religious people follow the traditions and rules. Our culture mesmerizes us with faulty ideas of success and security. We don’t need more of either of these. Instead, we need people who lift others through their love for Jesus, their willingness to step out and do risky, compassionate things, and because of their new ideas, fresh ventures, and radical investment in the needy and in the needs of our world.
We need trend-setters who know how to manage resources for the Kingdom: make more money (sometimes), spend less (always), and funnel funds in a way that glorifies Jesus.
We need a church that’s out of the walls, out of religion, out of our culture’s drivel, and sacrificing everything to become everything that Jesus is.
