Is your Outreach Diluting the Gospel?

Image from girlguiding.org.uk

The Girl Guide movement have recently changed their promise to one that deletes God. The new promise which comes in to effect on 1st September replaces the words 'to love my God' with 'to be true to myself and develop my beliefs' and also replaces 'To serve the Queen and my country' with 'To serve the Queen and my community'. Their website states that this was done after a long consultation process and the reason for the change is to make the organisation more 'open' to all girls and that it: 
 

 "continues to emphasise the spiritual development we offer".

For me, it is a sad day when a Christian organisation (or at least an organisation that started out as Christian) feels they need to dilute their message and to delete God from the core of their identity in order to be more 'acceptable' in today's society and culture. Since the days when Jesus walked the earth His message has always been counter-cultural. A lot of it goes against the grain of 'they way things are done' and political correctness.

This event highlights two important points that I think are vital for us to consider about our own outreach work in our communities:

Are we diluting the gospel?

 

In our efforts to reach out to unbelievers, whether this is within our church services or in other 'outreach events', are we sacrificing God? Are we cutting Jesus and our faith out of the picture in order to help make people feel more comfortable? Now don't get me wrong. I personally do not think bashing people over the head with a Bible is an effective way to show them Jesus' gospel of love, compassion, truth and salvation. I do think that we can 'show' people Jesus through the way we live our lives, but I also think we need to explicitly mention our faith as we do this. If we do not actually tell people the gospel, they won't just magically 'get it' or suddenly understand why we are being nice / helpful etc. We need to be intentional. The Girl Guide organisation has gone the opposite way, removing reference of God in favour of being true to myself and my beliefs, so they can be more inclusive.

Appoint Christian Leaders

 

Immediately, this creates problems in the UK. There are laws against religious discrimination which in one way are a good thing in that you can not be denied work based upon your faith. However in other ways it makes the running of Christian organisations very difficult in that you can not discriminate against someone if they are not a Christian - you are required to still give them the job even if they don't share the beliefs and values of the organisation! As far as I know, this excludes the positions of church leadership. However, I do know that in certain churches people who are not Christians do indeed hold positions of leadership and are even ordained ministers / vicars / priests / pastors etc. This leads to serious problems. When the leadership of an organisation or church do not hold to the central beliefs and aims of that organisation, they will change them! The mission will loose its mission. The church will loose its heart. The organisation will loose its faith.  

Salt and Light

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16

 Jesus tells us that we are to be the salt and the light on the earth. We are to taste different from everything else around us, not try to change our flavour so that we taste more like everything else. If salt looses its saltiness, it is not good for anything and is thrown away! If we loose our saltiness, we are not good for anything, we are not making any difference in the world around us, we become pointless and obsolete. An event for an event's sake. If we loose Jesus from our message, if we dilute the gospel so that it is barely recognisable in what we do and say, we become completely ineffective and useless.

So why not add some more salt to your outreach event or church service this week? Make Jesus and the gospel a little bit more visible and obvious. Put your light on a stand for everyone to see, and then they will encounter Jesus, the only one who can bring true freedom and salvation.