In the ABP today, you can find an article detailing the plans of Pizza tycoon, Thomas Monoghan – a Roman Catholic, in building a city in Florida. A City of God.
The article tells of Monoghan’s devotion to the church and desire to create a city that is centered around the Ave Maria University – a Catholic college he founded. Total cost to build the City of God? $260 Million.
Christian critics are worried that the municipality threatens religious liberty. A worthwhile concern. You are allowed to live in the city, even if you are not Catholic, but that’s not really the plan.
My greater concern is how Catholics in particular and Christians in general are going to be perceived by the lost world. “If you are not like us, you are not good enough and we don’t want you.”
First let me say that Southern Baptists do things like this all the time. We isolate ourselves in any manner of ways. Because I have a diverse readership here, I will not abuse the values of some of my friends. Suffice it to say that we withdraw our daily lives from interaction with the world as much as we can. Witnessing is a “mission” that we do as a special event. In other words, I see us engaging lost people when we sense the responsibility, but when it comes to school, movies, sports leagues, etc., we would like a sanctified version, please, so as not to ruffle our feathers.
Here’s an example in my life. Upward sports are great, and I am not knocking them. However, in my county, Baptist churches have adopted various Upward programs and become the “Christian” alternative to the Parks & Recreation Department’s sports. They have drained away the Christians in the city leagues. I coach soccer for the city, and when Upward Soccer came along, the director of the Parks and Rec. assumed I would be coaching there. She was shocked when I said I was staying with the P & R.
My reasons? Nothing against Upward, again, but if all of the Christians leave and go to the “saved” league, who will represent Christ to the “lost” league? I will.
Let me throw in here that the Upward sports programs were intended to be provide a witness to lost kids through a Christian sports program, and they do here. I just think that the mindset among some parents has changed what it is right now. Regardless of that, a witness is needed in both leagues.
I like this post on Steve McCoy’s blog, Reformissionary post – “Smoking” please:
If you want to win the world to Christ you’re going to have to sit in the smoking section.
- Neil Cole
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Kevin Bussey
on May 17th, 2006
@ 3:57 pm:
Amen!
That is why I go to Starbucks or the generic coffee shop everyday!
todd
on May 18th, 2006
@ 1:15 am:
This is too true. Churches are building coffee shops in their new “Master Plans” because “some people would be too nervous to go into the auditorium but might sit down over a cup of coffee”. Check out Neil Cole’s book, “Organic Church”.He talks about this and how God helped him realize you don’t have to- “together we build a coffee shop” when there are already places to go (i.e. Starbucks, etc.) where the soil is fertile and the harvest is ripe. We don’t need ( in my humble opinion ) to pour thousands or millions of dollars into making our churches the “hip” spot. Christian country clubs don’t really help believers draw closer to God and I could pretty much guess that Jesus wouldn’t be hanging out at “The Jesus Java House” (plus it gets old pretty quickly). The non-christians I talk to are usually disgusted by the mega-church mentality and wonder why we aren’t helping the poor pay the bills…….I think people are drawn to Christ by our willingness to serve them with our most valuable resource.. our time. By the way, you could actually buy your friend’s coffee if you aren’t giving the extra 100 bucks a month to the “building fund”.