Mission in Action

We often talk about the marketplace of ideas, but how about the marketplace of actions?

Last night I had the opportunity to address a group of people from a church pastored by a friend of mine Dave.? Their church has secured a market stall one Sunday per month at a market in the Hills region of Perth and they plan to use it as an outreach, handing out materials about Christianity and chatting with passersby.? They had decided that handing out free bottles of water might be a good idea too, especially with the onset of Perth’s summer.? They had asked me to come and chat about how they might go about answering questions that people might ask.? ? Putting aside my reluctance about the effectiveness of that idea I went along to the meeting, hoping that I wouldn’t? be viewed as the naysayer who was putting a dampener on? their? plans.? While I went there unsure of how to approach their plans I have to say that I left with a real sense of optimism? about the decisions? we came to. And I can also say that I had a genuine sense that it was the Holy Spirit both prompting me to say what I said and enabling them to respond how they responded.? We could almost hear the penny dropping.

The? primary issue for me, and one which I pushed fairly? rigorously, was tied up in their identity. Did they? literally want to be viewed as simply? one voice in the marketplace – a subculture along with all of the other subcultures on display such as? the antiques, or reiki, or woodturning subcultures? – or did they want to use their stall? to be countercultural?? ? Here’s what I? mean: If they intended to? view their primary? target group as market-goers then their usefulness would be limited.? ? Markets in the Perth Hills attract an interesting cross section of people, many of whom are often? far better equipped philosophically than many of those manning the church’s stall. You’d need a good grasp of theology to? “win an argument” with someone who started debating you.? And many other? market-goers? simply don’t want to be bugged by religious people whilst on a lazy Sunday outing.?

The questions this church group had come up were questions that they thought many people? have about Christianity.? While it is problematic to begin with? whether or not? those questions actually ARE the questions people are asking,? at best? the context in which to deal with? such questions? would be an? isolated, individualistic and one-off context.? It could very easily descend into a points scoring exercise between Christians and anti-Christians rather than genuine? debate and inquiry.? ? ? ?

What I put to them was this: Instead? of? trying to reach market-goers, how? about we turn the strategy on its head by trying to reach the? other stall-holders.? Instead of trying to connect with people who are there for a while and may never? return or return only rarely, make connections with the stall holders that you will see on a regular basis and who form the very committees who? run the markets.? ? That way you change the context from isolated, individualistic and brief to one that is integrated, communal and ongoing.?

This of course raised the question, how do we focus on these stall-holders?? We can’t go around bugging the other stall holders to hear our message. Exactly. You can’t.? But you can, I pointed out, serve them.? You can be known as the “go-to” stall when someone needs help fixing something at their stall, when someone has forgotten to bring their lunch or when their trestle has broken or when they simply need a toilet break.? Jesus came as a servant and the way we demonstrate Christ-likeness to people is by serving them in? a similiarly self-sacrificial manner.? ? Quite simply you can become the stall that everyone? looks out for? when they set up because they know that you will be helpful, humble and generous in how you deal with? other stall-holders.?

What will happen over time is that people will ask you questions.? But it won’t necessarily be the questions you’d originally prepped for or the ones the pamphlets you bought at the Christian bookshop say you should revise for.? It will be the kind of questions that the pagans in? 1Peter 3:15 ask of their Christian neighbours “How come your hope smells better than my hope?”? “How come your lives look so attractive?” “How come you are willing to help people each Sunday and how come in the committee meetings your representatives have a spirit of unity and selflessness?”? ? It will be as? others see? the Christian? community’s way of life that they will sit up and take notice, or not, ? as the case may be!? It is then that you have the opportunity to point to your King.

It was great to see peoples’ faces light up as the evening wore on because instinctively they knew that this was the way things should be.? That living as the community of King Jesus is what really brings into question every other way of living that our culture has bought in to. I came back down the Hill thanking God for His church and the power of His Spirit that creates the desire in people to not be content with spruiking their message in the marketplace of ideas, but be willing to demonstrate? changed lives in the marketplace of actions.

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