 After “boring,”people’s main reason for not attending church is
“unfriendly.”
Churches in the USA face this sometimes, and it can be a problem
other places too, as I discovered firsthand two years ago when I visited London.
All Souls Church–Langham Place is sometimes held up as an example of how the church can be successful in a mostly–secular society, like England.
Their facility is great, designed by famed architect John Nash. It is located in a busy, upscale area only a few blocks north of Piccadilly Circus. For 50 years the renowned evangelical author, John R.W. Stott, was rector and rector emeritus of All Souls, and it flourished. In 2005 he was ranked one of the 100 most influential people in the world. When I first attended the church in 2003 it seemed lively, Bible–based and culturally relevant. Maybe it still is. But I don’t know firsthand, because when I stopped by on a Saturday evening in June 2010 to ask about service times, I got what amounted to the cold shoulder.
 There were several people there, checking microphones and balancing the sound system. No fewer than 12 people either made eye contact or walked past, ignoring me completely. For 25 minutes I waited in vain for a simple, “May I help you?” or “Hello there, whadaya need?” or even “Who let you in here?” Nothing!
I wasn’t dressed up—maybe they thought I was looking for a handout. Maybe it was simply because I am American! And granted, they were probably not official church staff—well, one or two might have been. And if I’d gone to All Souls on Sunday morning, not wearing old jeans and a T–shirt, they probably would have had the A–Team ready to meet and greet all the visitors. I hope so. I don’t mean to belittle All Souls Church. I just felt invisible—like I wasn’t even there. And in church--especially in church—no one should ever feel invisible.
In that is a lesson for all us Yanks back home in North America. You never know when a chance might come to touch somebody’s heart—maybe at a most unexpected, mundane time. And a simple kind word might be an encouragement they desperately need.
Even if you’re not on the A–Team, you can help someone feel visible—and you never know where that might lead.
Repeat after me: No cold shoulders.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
It was the unthinkable. A fine Christian man, in the prime of life; with a loving wife and three beautiful daughters, an extended family of parents, siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, in–laws; a church family depending on him; an Army veteran who served faithfully; young and vital and unselfish; he died on his motorcycle, going to work. We were left behind to
wonder and ponder.
I knew Dave from a wee lad, hiding behind his mother’s skirts. He grew up in the years that I was away; when I returned to that community he no longer hid behind his mother. He had a family of his own, a beautiful family that restores one’s hope for country and world. He carefully managed our church’s resources as Treasurer. He worked with the youth. He stewarded the Church’s sound and projection systems. He supported the men’s group and helped his neighbors in the rural community, looking for ways to improve the world for
everyone.
Dave was an example of a godly leader, someone we could watch and consult when we needed guidance, someone to follow. Only 42 when he died, he had the wisdom of an elder to whom others turn for direction. You knew, this man has a living relationship with God and is a resource for us in our own pilgrimages toward eternity.
So why did God let him die? God only knows. But our choice is either to trust God when we can’t answer “Why?” or to reject Him. Choosing the former, there were several truths to embrace, even as “Why?” echoed in the void:
1.) God could have prevented the accident, but he chose, in his infinite wisdom, not to.
2.) No human being is “in control,” as God is. So many people think they’re in control of their lives, but a simple motorcycle accident shows how fragile is our control.
3.) Dave didn’t die simply because God stopped loving him. God is constantly perfecting his love in each of us, even when tragedy clouds the sun.
4.) God is too wise to be mistaken, too good to be unkind; since He knows “the end from the beginning” we can trust His heart, even when we don’t understand His methods.
My friend Dave didn’t leave a hole, he left a crater. But the crater itself was flooded with the love and mercy and grace of God.
“Not ‘goodbye.’ Rather, ‘See you later, good friend’.”
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 There’s a story from Charles Swindoll about a missionary who got into trouble over peanut butter. Let me elabo-rate . . .
Grace loved peanut butter, but it wasn’t available in the backward territory where she served, so she arranged with friends back home to send peanut butter occasion-ally. She soon found that the other missionaries liked peanut butter too, but since it wasn’t available, they believed it was God’s will that they do without peanut butter. Then along came Grace and messed up God’s will. They soon let her know that doing without peanut butter was a mark of religious maturity. In other words, if you ate peanut butter, you weren’t up to par religiously.
Grace couldn’t buy that convoluted line of reasoning. She kept right on getting peanut butter from home, and she didn’t flaunt it under their noses. She just enjoyed it in the privacy of her own home.
But the pressure intensified. The “more religious” missionaries began to speak against Grace. They stopped visiting her. They prayed publicly that God would straighten Grace out. The desire to lead the natives to faith in Christ began to change into a desire to bend Grace to their idea of what it meant to be sacrificial.
Inevitably, the “non–peanut butter religious giants” enlisted some of the native Christians and got them to pressure Grace to throw out her peanut butter. But other local people got a taste of peanut butter and really liked it. Before long there were two camps, the “peanut butter” Christians and the “non–peanut butter, religious–giant”Christians. Neither side would capitulate. Eventually the missionaries who had been there longer won over more people, and threatened the other locals with eviction or worse. The peanut butter Christians had to decide: give up their peanut butter or give up their homes.
Grace decided to leave. She was no longer able to concentrate on helping the native people with their faith or spiritual growth. All she did was enjoy a little peanut butter, and now there was open warfare over a jar of brown, gooey legumes.
After Grace left, the furor died down, but not before an enterprising villager found a source for the fractious food. Soon everyone was enjoying peanut butter, including the formerly “non–peanut butter religious–giant” missionaries.
Of course, by then Grace was history, a victim of good old–fashioned religious legalism.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 You don’t have to be a farmer to see the wisdom in this story of missionaries in 19th century China.
They began to push into the unexplored heart of that vast land. At one stop they found a community where the farmers grew mainly potatoes. There was a good climate and rich, well–drained soil, just what potatoes need to
thrive. But for some reason, their harvest was always little potatoes, barely bigger than marbles.
When the missionaries asked about the puny spuds, the locals just said that big potatoes didn’t grow there anymore.“Surely you must get big potatoes sometimes,” the missionary said.
“Yes, now and then,” was the reply, “but only a few, and only occasionally.”
“What do you do with the few big potatoes?”
“We eat them, of course. The biggest ones are the best,” the Chinese farmers said. “Then we plant the littlest ones.”
The farmers were planting potatoes with stunted genes that produced ever smaller potatoes. They systematically reduced their crop as they took the biggest and best for themselves, and planted the dwarf potatoes that only returned more dwarfs.
The missionaries explained that only when they planted the big ones—when they invested the best they had in the future—would they get big potatoes in return.
We might smile at the ignorance of primitive people who don’t understand the most elementary principles of growing strong, healthy crops. Yet maybe we do the same thing in other ways. We think to ourselves, “I want to keep the best myself. What’s left over, the runts, I’ll give to others—or worse, to God!”
Every time we consume the best and plant the runts, we contribute to a life that grows ever more stunted and puny and restricted as time goes by.
Selfishness seems to offer the best life—keeping the best for ourselves. Unselfish generosity doesn’t have the same appeal as consuming the best “on our own lusts”(James 4:3 KJV). Yet, there’s a paradox that always holds true. Putting others ahead of ourselves turns our worldview outward and enriches life—ours and others—in unexpected but joyful ways.
If we give of our best to others, including God—especially God—our generosity will be reciprocated and life will produce fewer and fewer runts. So, plant large, eat the runts, and watch life multiply.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
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