COUNTRY CLUB TO CHURCH: THE MISSION
THEME: FUNCTIONING AS A CHURCH WITH THE OUTSIDER IN MIND.
TEXT: ACTS 15:1-11
While I was at Hartsville Pike church of Christ, one of the church members invited me along on a weekday morning to pay golf at the private Gaylord Springs Country club. Rick worked for J.C. Penney, and one of the executives from the company was also going to join us. Both of these men had memberships to this excusive golf course. So when I was invited I was honored and excited to attend this golf outing. I knew I was in for a special treat as we pulled up to the antebellum club house. It held all of the southern charm for years past. We did not go park the SUV, because we pulled up to the club house and stepped out of the vehicle. There to meet us was two attendants who quick when around back to unload our golf clubs. As they pulled the golf bag out of the SUV they placed the cub on the back of a golf cart and begin cleaning the clubs up to a nice shine. Then one of the attendants jumped in the SUV and drove off. As we were waiting for our clubs to be cleaned a nice younger lady asked us what refreshments we would enjoy. I selected an orange Gatorade. In a matter of moments the bottle was placed in the cup holder on the cart. We drove over to the driving range and hit an unlimited amount of practice balls on the range. We should hit the links on a perfectly tended course. The round flowed smoothly without any long waits or inconveniences. After a respectable 92, with a few extra shots allowed, I was playing with gentlemen; we finished the round on a nice sunny day. We went into the club house where an attendant met us who cleaned our golf shoes and nicely passed them back to us. We waited for the attendant to pull out the SUV as the kind attendant placed our clubs back of the vehicle. The executive friend handed over a tip and we were off.
This was a great country club experience. It was totally all about me. It was about my happy, my comfort, my preferences, and my desires. The country club is there to service my needs, wants, and ideas. Unfortunately, this attitude is how some think about the church. I want to be nicely greeted, I want a nice sermon, I want good parking, some good classes for the children, and some positive singing. We sometimes think of the church through our own eyes. We think of the church in ways that should please us. We want to turn the church into a well run country club. In fact, if you look across the Christian world today, many congregations are functioning in this way. The church is predominately given to service the member’s needs want wants. This is where the major of the money is spent. This is where the most of the time is given. Most churches prefer to be church country clubs. But we want to address this mistake in the next two weeks. We want to go back to a church of the first century. We want to deny the current church culture, and be first century Christians.
This was not just a 21 First Century problem; it started in the 1st century. In the early church there was a group of people who wanted to make the church serve their particular likes and dislikes. It was a group that wanted certain qualifications for membership. It was the classic controversy between the insider’s mindset verses the outsider’s mindset. In fact this was the major controversy in the early church. The church was made up of predominately Jewish Converts. The gospel has only recently opened up to the Gentiles. And there is conflict between over the direction of the church. Was this church going to service the needs and wishes of the insiders, the Jews or was this church going to be concerned with the outsiders, the gentiles. Acts 15:1-11 gives the details of this boiling controversy. “And some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. And when they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But certain ones of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, stood up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses. And the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. "And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. "Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are."
There is a strong resistance to allowing Gentile to enter into the church. The Jews wanted to add extra qualifications to church membership. It was not good enough for Gentiles to believe, confess, repent, and be baptized. These people wanted them to be circumcised in order for them to be saved. It was easy for these Jewish Christians to place this burden on the Gentiles. It was easy for them to make this a rule of the church. The insiders were making rules for the newcomers to the congregation and the church. This was the typical pattern, the people in the church placing burdens and rules on people wanting to be in the church. It was the classic if you will change to be just like us, and then we will accept you.
This attitude has not changed much in the last 2000 years. Unfortunately, this scene is stuck in my mind. It is a sad scene. It is a disgrace scene. It is a disappointment. The scene happened at the Brown Trail congregation on a Wednesday Evening. It was before the Bible class as everyone meets for devotion before the Bible study period. Picture a man in his early thirties, walking into the church building in his mechanic’s outfit. He was not covered head to toe in grease, but he did have some of the marking of the line of work he did every day. I remember this man because on that Sunday he was baptized after the morning services. Now he was back for Bible class, and I assumed he did not have time to change. As he started making his way into the building he was mobbed a pack of older women. At first I believed this to be the true greeters of the congregation who were going to make over him for being there. I was wrong. It was the church police of clothing. I overheard these ladies explain to this new convert that he could not come to church in these clothes. He was essentially told he was not welcomed in the building. This was not too shocking because the elders of this congregation had a rule of no shorts at the church building. This was not just for worship, this was for any time. If someone needed help, they were turned away because they were not wearing pants, but shorts. One can provide hundreds of examples of congregations across this nation of making rules for the insiders of the congregation, in order to keep the outsiders away. There are stories after stories of people binding religious, manmade rules on people who needed the gospel, but they were turned away because they did not look like them, act like them, or talk like them. And these people who refuse to accept them into the church, who push them away from the church, will go to hell just like those outsiders who never knew Christ. Jesus says in Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” The Pharisees would search the earth for someone who would be just like them, but would not even walk across the street to share God will someone who was different.
Fortunately, the church realized the need to preach the Gospel to outsiders. Paul was given this specific mission to expand the kingdom’s boarders. The first century church was concerned with people who needed to hear the message of salvation more than what this or that particular group wanted in the church. Paul was superb in this mindset of reaching out to the Gentiles. He was not going to lock up the church from people who were different from him. He had a genuine concern for outsiders. He wanted the church to be of Christ, and not of the country club mindset. He was going to preach the pure gospel, which is available to everyone. He made his choices on what was best for people who needed to come to Christ over people who already had Christ. He did want was best to bring more people into the saving relationship of the Lord. He models this in Acts 28:28-31 “"Let it be known to you therefore, that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen." And when he had spoken these words, the Jews departed, having a great dispute among themselves. And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters, and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.” Paul even mentions his mission mindset, not country club mindset in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.” The good news for all of us is that the first century church cared about outsiders, the gentiles more than maintaining the country club church that some of the Jews wanted.
Every congregation must add these ideas to their thought patterns. In every decision that is made by a congregation, the focus should not be what do we want for ourselves, but what is going to help outsiders of this congregation come to Christ. When we start to think about what is best for those who need to have a relationship with Christ over what is best for ourselves, we will be practicing a first century Christianity, and not a country club Christianity. Before a major decision is made, we should ask ourselves if this is for ourselves or for those who need Christ.
A few years ago there was a major controversy concerning Augusta Country club in Georgia. Some of the women’s groups were protesting the fact that the club does not allow any female members. The groups wanted the major supports of the Master’s to withdraw support from the Master’s tournament. One can charge the club for being sexist, wrong, injustice, whatever you want to say about the club, but as a private country club it has the rights to pick and choose the members according to the courts of law. But according to the master of all law, Christ, the church never has the right to pick and choose who will be allowed into a congregation of the Lord’s body. There is no vocal vote, silence vote, or gossip vote, everyone who is becomes a Christian must be accepted in the church of Christ.
