I listened to an incredible sermon by Rob Bell yesterday, on Matt 28. (Find it here)
Most of you know I’ve ended up leading/guiding the social action team we have in CU this year. One of the things we want to see happen is for Christians to begin to understand that there is no real distinction between social justice and evangelism… the one is the other, and vice versa.
Rob was sharing about their new missions focus XYZ at an information evening one night when someone asked him a question,
“I think serving the poor is fantastic, but I am a little concerned. We need to be sure to tell them about Jesus. When is it that we are going to tell them about Jesus?”
Rob thought about it for a minute, then realised the answer was, we already are. He came to the realization that the question is not when do we teach them about Jesus, but what are we teaching them about Jesus. By the way we live out our lives and interact with others we are teaching them something about the nature of who Jesus is and what he is about. We are actually “telling others about Jesus” in a myriad of other ways, all the time.
“If Christians do not lead the way in caring for the earth, in stewarding our environment, then we have said to the world, we dont care about our environment. If we dont care for the environment, we are saying to the world we know our book has said one of its first commands is to take care of the earth, but we just dont really take that seriously.”
The gospel is not just something we verbally tell people. It is a way of life. If we only ever “share the gospel” through our words alone, it gets disembodied. It is meant to be lived out in the way we spend our money, love our neighboor, do our washing, take out our rubbish… everything.
I wish more people would get this.
HT: Mike
ha, i just listened to that yesterday, thought it was fantastic…
i get it! and i agree!
Do you know of any way to buy fair trade or ethical clothes for affordible prices? I notice that shirts and the like seem to be about sixty quid up. Maybe thats the price of not tramplin on the heads ae the poor..
I don’t know anything particularly cheap, it’s a problem I’ve had too. There’s a wee place called Bolshie along from the GUU (bank street maybe?) not sure how expensive it is but it has lots of nice ethical/fair trade stuff, you could try there.