My Take on Charge Conference

Charge Conference had one central message this year: Our relationships with unchurched people matter.

So this blog is all about that first part: Relationships.

Christianity, from its inception. No…before Christ…back to the Adam and Eve…has been about relationships. The primary relationship it is concerned with is our relationship with God. The secondary relationship it is concerned with is from person to person.

Yet somewhere along the line in America, we have forgotten. The Body of Christ, the church, whose main role is to promote right relationship with God and right relationship with others, somehow got swallowed up. Church has become about performance in worship, knowledge in small groups, doing for strangers we never intend to meet in missions, and organizing events and programs in nurture. Somewhere along the line, we have made church a business where we all have our assignments to keep the business running. Insiders have become employees and outsiders have become projects and customers. And it’s not working.

It is time to try something new (or old?). It is time to start talking about church, about measuring church by our relationships and their health. That means that our number one priority as a congregation, as individuals is to start building relationships.

So what does it take to build relationships? The most important relationships in my life had these three things in common:

1.       I had to spend time FOR that person. There was something I sacrificed for that person, whether it was my time or some kind of gift at some point. I had to put my interests and resources to the side and make that person a priority. It may have been something as small as the money and time to send a card or something, but I had to do something for them, without any expectation they would do something to return the favor.

2.       I had to spend time WITH that person. This, I would argue, is the main thing that creates relationships. I can give things and time to people and never have a relationship with them. I may know about them and want to help, but I don’t really know them. But, when I spend time with someone, things all the sudden get real. And the more time I spend with them, the more I care about them. The more of Christ I have to show them.

3.       I didn’t give up ON that person. If I spend enough time with them, eventually I am going to do something to tick them off. And then I will have to show them what it means to repent, because that’s what I will need to do. Eventually they will do something that really ticks me off. And then I will have to show them what it means to forgive someone. That is when what Jesus does gets real.

If we are serious about sharing Jesus with the unchurched, all the real work is here. We should all have people outside of a community of faith that we are building relationships with. So, who are those people in your life?