| Receiving the prodigal |
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Dary Northup wrote this interesting article I thought I would share. Sometimes it is good to reflect on the why and how we do things. Greater yet is the opportunity to serve God in a larger capacity by removing stumbling blocks. Enjoy.
What does it mean to try to build a “Prodigal Friendly Church”? The familiar Luke 15 passage is a snapshot of a young man who ran away from his roots and experienced a wild self-centered world for a season. When he came home, his father welcomed him with opened arms and his elder brother would not even acknowledge him as a brother. When talking to his father, the elder brother refers to the prodigal as “this son of yours.”
Jesus is telling this story to the religious people of His day. They are a picture of the elder brother. The spirit of the elder brother is alive and well in the church today. If the prodigal had bumped into the elder brother before he met the father, I am quite certain the prodigal would have never made it inside the house that day.
As a pastor, I live with this tension of hoping that we as a church can embrace rather than reject those prodigals who walk the path toward home. Many prodigals still have the stench of the pigs on them. They are marked and scarred from sin. They may look and behave differently than the “church” crowd. Their piercings and tattoos are important to them. They may need to put out their cigarette right before walking into our building. If they meet the elder brother at the door, it will be unlikely that they will experience the warm reception of the father.
So, a few thoughts about equipping people to welcome the prodigal.
- Teach believers to appreciate diversity...from clothing preferences to hairstyles. I am stunned at how many believers have a cookie-cutter mindset of what a Christian is to look like.
- Teach believers to respect the spiritual journey of every person in the room. Remember, some plant, some water, some reap the harvest. Work diligently to create an environment where prodigals and the unchurched find it safe to ask questions...to disagree, to share their opinion, to express their thoughts. We are all at different places in our journey with God.
- Trust the Holy Spirit to lead people into the lifestyle changes they need to make. We are not called to be the Holy Spirit in someone’s life. Let God renew and clean the heart, body, and spirit of a prodigal. When we try to clean people up it usually brings confusion. Rather, let’s walk with them as God cleans them up.
- Train people to understand the difference between these three things...absolutes, cultural expectations, and preferences. As followers of Christ, we often try to make our preferences into biblical absolutes when they are not. It is like Paul’s challenge concerning eating meat offered to an idol. That was a cultural issue that was treated with respect, but it was not a biblical absolute. I fear many church leaders place a higher expectation on people based on their own preferences rather than biblical absolutes. When churches have cultural expectations that are not based on biblical absolutes, it places an undue burden on prodigals and the unchurched.
- Pray to God that there will be an authentic move of God in people in every church service you have. There are no gimmicks from the world that can compete with God’s Spirit moving on the heart of a person. The world has some things that we don’t have, but we have something the world can never have, and that is the Spirit of God drawing people. God’s presence has no substitute. I try to pray and think about what those moments might look like in each service. Let God give you insight and wisdom to encourage people to have a moment when they wake up from the pigpen and run to Father God.
Finally, don’t be afraid to kill the fattened calf and have a party. Every church has a fattened calf; it simply varies from church to church as to what it is. Celebrating the return of the prodigal is something the elder brother could not do. Let’s not be like that. Celebrate those who once were lost, but now are found.
So...party on, church.
By Dary Northup, senior pastor
Timberline Church, Fort Collins, Colorado |
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