Sermon Central
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A Secret Weapon For Getting People To Want Jesus Series
Contributed by Jim Butcher on Dec 19, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: In this passage Paul speaks of throwing his "heart wide open" to the Corinthians. Could it be that the deep relationships that will come from doing that might be the church's secret weapon for attracting people to Jesus in a culture overwhelmed by loneliness?
DANGER SIGNS ON CHURCH FRIENDSHIPS: Shallow conversation, safe prayer requests, and busy pastors.
- Sometimes church members can be mean to each other, but even in good times many church friendships are characterized by their lack of depth. What are some of the signs?
a. Shallow conversation.
- In most church conversations, the talk is characterized by shallow politeness. There is no depth or seriousness to the discussion. We keep it shallow.
b. Safe prayer requests.
- When we share prayer requests in church, they tend toward the safe. People who are sick make up the overwhelming majority of the requests. I know that we can’t necessarily share all of our personal stuff in a larger meeting, but the almost complete lack of anything personal in almost all church meeting contexts says a lot. It says that we don’t think that church is a safe place to share our burdens.
c. Busy pastors.
- Most churches hire a pastor to “run the church.” He is to plan the worship, attend the meetings, preach the sermons, and generally keep the organization running efficiently. The thing that leaves almost no time for is developing deep relationships with his congregation. Sure, he is expected to visit the sick, but he generally doesn’t have time to keep up with what’s going on in people’s lives or to disciple several people in their spiritual growth. This approach has become so typical of American churches that congregations don’t expect anything different. They are surprised when a pastor takes a personal interest in them. They just figured he was too busy.
A BETTER WAY: Hearts wide open.
- Twice in this passage Paul speaks of opening your heart wide. In v. 11 he reminds the Corinthians that he and his fellow ministers opened their hearts wide to them. In v. 13 he encourages them to do the same in return.
- “Hearts wide open” is not a concept that needs much explanation. They didn’t just share a message with them – they shared their lives and their heart.
- Of course, both of the books written to the Corinthian churches paint a picture of dysfunction, so it is not a surprise that they were not properly sharing their affection with Paul (v. 12). They were a mess of split loyalties, moral lapses, and theological ignorance. Paul here is pointing them toward the type of relationships that they should have.
- Going back to the three danger signs that we began with, we have to admit that the American church is not exactly killing it on this issue.
- Many church growth strategies focus on providing a terrific performance to those coming on Sunday morning or on aggressive evangelism techniques that feel like insurance sales.
- Rarely do we think about the quality of the relationships within the church.
- Indeed, we glorify huge churches where there are too many people to know everyone. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with huge churches – they can use small groups to connect people to each other. Still, the thing that is envied about them by other churches is not that the church has deep and meaningful relationships, but how huge the Sunday morning attendance is.
- This is a strange oversight when you think about it. There are many people who happily remain in smaller churches through frequent pastoral changes because they have deep, healthy relationships within their church family. This is not a minor thing to them. In fact, it is probably the single most important factor that kept them there even through times of struggle.
- This “hearts wide open” approach is not one that is evident in a lot of churches today, so let’s paint a little picture of what it might look like.
- It’s worth considering for a moment that the Bible speaks of the church as a family. My male friends in church are my “brothers”; my female my “sisters.” It speaks of “God’s family” and the “family of believers.” There should be a closeness there. There should be an intimacy. We should be more than just people who sit in adjacent pews.
WHAT MIGHT THAT LOOK LIKE?
- There are many more ideas we could discuss, but I’m just going to share a few to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
1. Small groups with honest sharing.
- Think for a second about the typical conversations that happen in church. They are polite . . . and shallow. There is nothing mean about them but neither is there anything meaningful about them.
- That’s not the way it should be. Church should be a place where you can share your real life.
- Think for a second about the fact that, for many, church is the last place they’d want to confess something. People would talk behind their back rather than praying for them.
