Who Can Come to United?

 I had a conversation with someone last week where we were talking about the process that we go through in coming to and then staying in a church. I was sharing with him that I pray that each week our services are filled with 1st time guests who reek of cigarette smoke, are coming down off a high or may be hung-over. I pray that young girls who just had an abortion or don’t “dress the right way” for church show up. I pray that men who beat their wives or who “don’t look the part” of being a Christian show up. Here’s the reason why…read this slowly until it sinks in an makes sense. In most churches the process is:

1.  Behave…if you want to attend here then you need to behave
     like a Christian.
2.  Believe…now actually become a Christian.
3.  Belong…now that you you look and think like us, you can
     become a active part of our church. 

Here’s how it should be though:

1.  Belong…right away no matter who you are or what you’ve done,
     we accept you.
2.  Believe…as you are here and feel the love of God, hopefully
     you’ll also respond to the message of God’s love when it’s
     presented.
3.  Behave…as we talked about in the Extreme Makeover series,
     true transformed lives don’t come from making a decision to
     behave differently, but rather from changing your thinking,
     which in turn will help you to make better, God honoring,
     decisions.  That type of thinking can only come when someone
     has the Holy Spirit living in them to help guide them towards
     the truth.

The lesson then is this…we can’t expect non-Christians to act like Christians until they are.  We need to radically love each and every person that walks through our doors and help them discover the love and grace of Jesus Christ.