Reaching the One

Matthew 18:12 tells the parable of the shepherd leaving the 99 safe sheep to find the one lost sheep. It is a beautiful picture that Christ goes out in search of the lost, no matter how many he has saved.

At Capstone this is our motto, that we are called the reach the one. But to what extent can this be true? Obviously through God all things are possible, but there are certain situations that just seem, well- interesting.

For example, I recently found this website- Godblock.com, that blocks religious content from website, much like parental control softwares block and filter pornography. The website says nothing about God and religion being evil, and it doesn't discriminate- all religions are filtered equally- but something troubled me far more than the site itself.

You cannot (well, should not) be able to convince a Christian that porn is ok and safe, even good for you. That is ludicrous- everyone knows someone affected by porn. We don't want our children looking at it, we don't want our eyes looking at us, and we will try to persuade people that porn is bad for us all.

This website is the exact same, but for religion. So how do you convince a person who isn't angry with God, but is wanting to filter all the dangers of religion from their children and their own eyes?

Listen to what this website says:

GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.

This is hard to take in, that there are people who view Christians the same way Christians view the world- violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful. How do we combat that? Obviously we stuff literature in their mailbox and proclaim that we will "pray for them." We can't break out the ABC's of Salvation. We can't try to explain to them that the violence and sex is bad for them- they are already actively screening themselves from that.

It would be different if they were attacking Christianity, saying that no one should believe it, but they are taking more of a defense, letting their idea of evil stay, while just ignoring it and protecting themselves from it. Surprisingly and sadly, this is what most Christians do with evil. They filter it from their eyes, and allow it to spread throughout the world while they live safely.

To be honest, to see it from the other side is interesting, because it shows a view of the Church. This site views the Church as attacking the freedoms of humanity, holding people back and poisoning their minds with violent and sexual stories. It does view Christianity on the attack, and I suppose that is good that it is technically offensee, but Christians shouldn't be attacking, they should be loving, serving, and making disciples. You don't make a disciple by yelling at them and shoving beliefs down their throats. It is great for creating a military, but not for creating a people who go out and love, serve, and make other disciples.

I'm not saying that Christianity should be on defense on this either, because how do you play a game with both teams playing defense?

What I am saying is that we as Christians cannot go around with lame and pathetic views of witnessing.

yes, I said that the way many Christians do witnessing is pathetic. I don't mean the ones who don't witness, that isn't pathetic because there isn't anything there. What is pathetic is a Christian who goes and witnesses to grown adults with little more than a tract and a eager heart. Willingness doesn't equal effectiveness.

We need to leave the cute little mnemonic devices, leave the alphabets of salvation, and soak ourselves in Scripture. We are called to go out to the one- no matter how hard it is. There is no asterisk that says "only if it is easy- if that one doesn't want to be found, you leave them." It says Christ went out after the one. Period.

Like I said, obviously God can do anything, and work through anything. if that is the ABC's of salvation, or if it is an in depth conversation about theology, or if it is a bumper sticker that says "In Case of Rapture this car will be unmanned." But that doesn't mean that we should slack off. We have to go out and find the one.