Come and Invite

Someone who attends Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church recently shared something very powerful on Facebook:

  • If you’re having sex before marriage, come to church anyway.
  • If you are a drug addict trying to beat addiction, come to church anyway.
  • If you were out drunk all night the night before, come to church anyway.
  • If you fear you will be judged for who you are, come to church anyway.
  • If you can’t quit that disgusting habit, come to church anyway.

It got me thinking. Why should people accept her invitation, especially if they have been judged for some or all the behaviors listed above at other churches? Why should they accept the invitation to attend her church?

 We have been blessed at Samaritan’s Heart to have people say yes to that invitation and become part of our church family. Ramona and I shared this with our coach, and he asked a similar question: “What is it about the church that has people inviting and people accepting?” He then answered his own question: culture, community, and care.  God then showed me what He wants those things to look like at our church.

  1. Dinner Party Culture: I refer specifically to the dinner party at Matthew’s house. After the tax collector Matthew agreed to follow Jesus, the scene moves to a dinner party at his house:

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:10-13 (NIV).                         

I pray the same prayer over and over every day: “God give us dirty feet to love and the hands to wash them. Lord, please send us people no one else wants nor sees.” And He has! We believe a church should have the “Matthew dinner party culture.” The kind of church where the Pharisees would ask, “what are they doing here?”

  • Community: A church where dirty feet wash dirty feet:

2 The evening meal was in progress… 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 1: 2-5 (NIV).

Pastor Chris Brown makes a great point about this moment. Why did Jesus wait until mid-meal to get up and wash the feet of His disciples? Because He was waiting for someone else to do it. Church community should mean dirty feet washing other feet. Author Paul Tripp puts it this way:

“Corporate worship is designed to alert you to the war for control of your heart and in the help that is found only in Jesus. We forget our our need for the body of Christ; that our spiritual life is meant to be a group project. We forget that we have not only been blessed to be recipients of God’s grace, but have been called to be the tools of grace in the lives of others.”

  • Care: Making the needs of others our top priority

17 One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” John 5:17-20 (NIV)

It’s a stunning moment. A paralytic man is healed by the faith of his friends. When we invited people to a loving, non-judgmental church family, we are lowering them through the roof to be close to Jesus. Not 30, 20, or even 10 people. Ask God if He is calling you to lower one person through the roof. Is he making your heart burn for that person to know Him? Come and invite. You will both be blessed more than you can imagine!

Pastor Jerry Bader

This post is adapted from the message “Through the Roof,” delivered May 19, 2024 at Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church.

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