Today I am going to ask the question, “What should our churches look like?” What I mean by that is, when you walk into a church, what kind of people should you see? Should our church reflect heaven?
The other day I was carrying the cross in a lower income community called Vickery Meadow, where my wife and I started our ministry over 20 years ago. Vickery is an apartment community of around 30K people who live in a 4-square mile radius. It is mostly a lower to middle class neighborhood. It also has a huge refugee and immigrant population. It is my favorite place on earth. It’s filled with beautiful people who come from all over the world, all races, all cultures, and from all religious backgrounds.
When you’re walking down a street in Vickery, you see all different kinds of people. When you’re walking many miles carrying a cross like I was, you pass by hundreds of people. All different from the next.
On this day, as each person walked by, I had this thought in my head and I kept saying to myself, “Would I ever see that person in a church? Would I see this person in a church?” Or more specifically, “Would I ever see that person in one of the churches that I have typically gone to in my lifetime?” I was imagining all of the different churches that I had been to all of my life. Imagining the crowds and the people I typically would see in a church. And I just kept asking myself, “Would I ever see that person in that church?”
The typical church I grew up in was a middle to upper class white evangelical church. Aside from the immigrant churches I have visited over the years, most churches I visited were pretty similar to the one I grew up in. The only difference really was the size of the congregation or the age of the people in the church.
The answer to my question, “Would I see this or that person in a church?” that kept coming back to my mind for each person, was “no no no and no”. Obviously I wasn’t trying to pre-judge people based on how they looked. I am sure I did make assumptions on a few people. Maybe they did go to church somewhere. But you have to understand, I am mostly passing by people of different religions and backgrounds, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. But there were also some very obvious ones who were very poor looking people out on the streets, some homeless, some mentally ill, some drug addicts, and even prostitutes. And I certainly didn’t picture them in any of the churches I had visited in my lifetime.
There were so many people. So many people who may never step into a church to hear the message of Jesus. Of course, that breaks me. It always does.
All of this just got me thinking about why. Why are they not in our churches? Of course I have been asking this question for years, but I want to pose some questions to you today to give you something to think about that might help answer that question and hopefully inspire all of us to reach out more to the unchurched.
I want you to do an exercise right now. Imagine you’re sitting in your church that you attend now. Do you see yourself sitting there? When you look around, who do you see? What kind of people are there? What kind of clothes are they wearing? What background do they come from? What race are they? What economic level do you think they come from? What religious background do they come from? Can you see yourself there? Do you see the people?
Now I want to ask you a question. Does everyone look kind of the same in your church? Does everyone for the most part basically look like you or at least come from a similar background? Are most people there already coming from a Christian background? Of course there are exceptions, but if you answered yes to those questions, then I would say that’s normal. Most people in most churches, when you walk in, kind of look similar. Most are filled with similar types of people. And most are filled with Christians who likely transferred over from another church.
Now let’s try another exercise. Imagine walking into a Walmart. I don’t know if your Walmart is like mine. It probably is if you live in a big city. It is going to be extremely diverse, especially the Walmart in Vickery Meadow.
Now imagine walking in. When you look around, who are you seeing? What kind of people are there? What kind of clothes are they wearing? What backgrounds do they come from? What race are they? What economic level do you think they come from? What religious background do you think they come from? Can you see yourself there? Do you see the people? Chances are, it looks COMPLETELY different from the church you attend. Completely different would probably be an understatement.
Let me tell you who I see when I walk into a Walmart. First off, I see beautiful people. I see people from every background and every culture. Every race. Every religious background. Most people are probably lower to middle class. There are even some upper class people mixed in there. There are African Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, and white people. There are Africans from many different African countries. There are Afghans, Iranians, and Iraqis. People from all over the middle east. There are people from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and India. People from all over. A mixture of every kind of people you can imagine from all around the world and mostly filled with the unreached and the unchurched of the world.
Let me ask you another question. What do you imagine Heaven looking like? Think about that for a minute. Do you imagine Heaven looking like your church where everyone looks the same as you and comes from the same background as you? Or do you picture Heaven looking like a Walmart, where it is filled with all kinds of people. Where everyone is coming from every tongue, tribe, and nation. Where everyone is literally coming from every culture and every part of the world.
I want to end with this scripture.
Revelation 7:9-10
9 After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. 10 And they were shouting with a great roar,
“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
and from the Lamb!”
What kind of heaven do you imagine? What kind of church do you want to be a part of?
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