For years I’ve been searching for good carne asada on Oahu. There used to be a little taco stand on Waialae that had the best carne asada tacos on the island. Every day at lunch there was a line of people out the door, all speaking Spanish. But since they closed down five years ago, I’ve tried every carne asada taco on the island. I’ve been disappointed every time… until I discovered a little place in Haleiwa. When I had their carne asada, I heard a symphony playing in my mind. It was that good.
So now, whenever anybody is headed to the North Shore, I tell them they have to go try the carne asada. Even if they’re just going anywhere remotely near the North Shore, I tell them to take a detour and try the carne asada. It was a life-changing experience, and I want people to share it with me.
That’s the kind of attitude John had when it came to the gospel. He said, “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:3-4).
John had joyful fellowship with God, but he knew his joy wasn’t complete unless he invited people to have the same fellowship he did. And he knew the best way to invite people into fellowship with God was to invite them into fellowship with the church.
We’ve seen this happen all the time around our church, and we’ve noticed a process that typically takes place. We’ve come to call it the Process of Missional Living.
We enjoy fellowship with God and the gospel community.
When people become Christians, they start to enjoy the fellowship of the Trinity and the community of God’s family. But what often happens is that they totally leave the world behind. Many years ago I saw a statistic that said the average number of non-Christian friends a person has two years after they put their faith in Christ is zero. Zero. They have acquaintances, coworkers, and family members, but no real friends who are outside the church. So the first step in the process of missional living is:
1. Develop significant relationships with non-Christians
That’s a big step for some Christians to make, because it means going where non-Christians are, and being a part of what non-Christians do. Going to birthday parties and going out for happy hour after work. Joining a canoe club or a jiu-jitsu class. Then we can use those springboards to develop significant relationships, which means spending time with people. Listening to their problems, and sharing our own problems with them. Being a real person. Christians don’t have it all figured out, but we can share how our faith has helped us through those problems. Once we have deep relationships established, then we can:
2. Take the gospel community into the non-Christian contexts you have established
Invite people from the gospel community — people from the church, or even better, our community group — to join us in our canoe club, jiu jitsu class, neighborhood block parties, etc. Build a bridge so fellow believers can develop significant relationships with our friends as well.
Along the way, we’ll start gradually climbing the ladder of offensiveness. We can start out talking about things that almost everybody’s comfortable talking about. Like “spirituality.” Everybody can share their stories of spiritual experiences. Many people on this island will talk about the incredible spiritual experiences they’ve had out on the
ocean or hiking Haleakala. So then we can take the next step up the ladder and talk about God. If they’re still hanging with us, we try talking about Jesus. We’ll lose a lot of people there, but if they’re still with us, we can talk about sin. We’ll lose almost everyone there, but if they’re still around, we can talk about wrath. And then mercy, grace, and salvation. And if they’re still with us, then we’re ready to:
3. Bring non-Christians back into the gospel community
Invite them to a Sunday morning service. Invite them to community group. And when they show up, there will be a bunch of people they already know, because they’ve already developed significant relationships in their own context. They’ll feel right at home. Then, once they’ve experienced fellowship with the community of believers for a while, hopefully it will be natural for them to seek fellowship with the community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
And then it’s time to party. Because as John explained, this is what makes our joy complete. We can celebrate and join with God and the angels rejoicing in heaven as sinners repent and turn to Jesus.