comments:
“It advertises times for services and Bible studies. That is important context. They clearly study the Gospel in there” “Personally I researched the LCMS online before attending my first time, and I think most other newcomers do too.” “The sign implicitly says “Come in here, all sinners who seek the forgiveness of sins and salvation in Christ.”” All three of these make a fundamental assumption: that the passer-byer has pre-existing knowledge of what The Church teaches or is. This is not the context that the typical driver or pedestrian is working in. About 20 years ago there was a major church (Willow-creek, non-LCMS) that was a thought leader for much of American Christianity on how to reach people. They had many many people attending their services. At some point they decided to do a survey of their members to find out what they believed. The results were that most of them rejected basic and fundamental tenets of the Faith- a majority of their members weren’t even Christian! It was a severe indictment of their teaching methods. Their response? Have the members take care of themselves rather than teaching them. If that’s the state of general American Christianity’s thought leaders, how much worse do you suppose knowledge of the faith is for those who have never darkened a church door? What about those who were in the Faith, but their churches chewed them up and spat them out? The context that most people who are seeing this sign is some combination of: “I have heard of Jesus, but don’t know anything about him.” or “I once was a believer, but the church was legalistic, hypocritical, and unloving. Never again.” Like it or not, when they see a sign like this they immediately think about Westboro Baptists and the like protesting the LGBT lifestyle at parades, harassing the funeral of fallen service men or victims of mass shootings with signs like “GOD HATES FAGS”, “THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS”, and “GOD SENT THE SHOOTER.” Since that’s the context that many in society are working with, it’s no wonder they react like they do and join the increasingly common refrain, “There’s no hate like Christian love.” I think the hardening of hearts in the comment section of the linked post shows that. Frankly, I don’t blame them. If I all had to work with was the wicked abuses of God’s name that some Christians try to pass off as the Faith, I too would want nothing to do with the real Church or God. Unfortunately, the American Christian community has all too often earned this. For the “sad alumni” of the Church, they need to hear the Gospel, possibly for the first time. Dr. Rod Rosenbladt does an excellent job talking about this in his talk “The Gospel for those Broken by the Church” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj2bm5-PMAI For those who have never darkened a church door, we need to reach out to them with both Law and Gospel. We can apply the Law to them without turning the Church into the enemy. Everyone has the Law written on their hearts, a standard that they hold themselves to. And everyone is failing that standard, whether or not they admit it. We can leverage the Law that they already know and feel and show them how they are failing, then bring the Gospel to them. Mark J. Cares writes about what this looks like in the second half of this book “Speaking the Truth in Love to Mormons” https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Truth-Love-Mormons-Cares/dp/1893702065 Both of these need a lot more intention, care, and human connection than a sign could ever hope to bring. That’s why I prefer it that Churches don’t have this kind of sign.