In a recent Conversation class we talked about how the church has lost respect in the culture and how it is being more and more marginalized. We addressed a question: What are some adjustments local churches might want to consider to regain respect in the culture?

In the discussion it was asked, “Does the Church need the respect of the culture?” We concluded that it does not. The church should go about the business of being the church with or without the respect of the culture. We don’t get our affirmation from culture; we get our affirmation from God.

We’re not out particularly to tick off the culture but the culture needs to know that we are a community of God in the name of Jesus. We are shaped and formed by the One we believe is Messiah, Lord of the universe. So, in fact, we are a community within the community, a culture within the culture.

It is our business to bring the voice of God into the human experience. Whether or not His voice will be heard is an issue that the culture must take upon itself. However, the answer the culture gives will not stop the church from being the church. So, we say, the church does not need the respect of the culture.

We appreciate what the culture potentially can bring into human experience, but we do not bow to culture; we bow to God. With the first church we say, WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN (ACTS. 5:29).

Somebody once said that the heart of ministry is simply finding a need and meeting it. I have discovered through the years that usually the need that is found is found by someone who has a heart for that kind of thing. They see it when others may not. It doesn't mean they are more spiritual and that those who don't see it are insensitive. It just means that their giftedness is working like an antenna. What is in our hearts is what we tend to see. An English teacher might pick up a misspelled word in the bulletin when the rest of us wouldn't catch it. A singer would more likely pick up a missed musical note when the rest of us wouldn't even think about it. A mechanic might hear a noise that the rest of use wouldn't hear.

All of this is why a gifted ministry is so important. As each of us function the way we function, we add a dimension to the church that would otherwise go unfulfilled. Some are good in finances, others aren't. Some are good with people, others aren't. Some are good up front, others aren't. Some are comfortable to work behind the scenes; others function well in front of people. Some make great ushers, others don't. Some are great singers, others aren't.

What I am contending for is that the pastor must do what he is called and gifted to do. Each member of the church must do what they are equipped to do. Working together, under the power of the Holy Spirit, it is then that the church is best equipped and prepared to offer a redemptive ministry to a hurting world.

So, the clarion call is to FIND A NEED AND MEET IT. As the pastor seeks to keep the community attentive to God, the Spirit is then free to work in all our lives in such a way that each member of the Body can "use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms" (I Peter 4:10).

The witness of the church – we talk about it, we pray about it, and we proclaim it as fundamental to who we are as a people of God. How well we do it might be a legitimate debate, but that we are a witnessing people is not in question. Yet, what does it mean, what does it entail, and how is it undertaken?

In the 1980s when Cambodians fled their homeland for safety and for freedom, and came to the USA, many of them landed in Long Beach, California. Away from their homeland, in a place where everything was strange and foreign to them, some came to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. There are many stories but there is one story that touched my heart, and became, for me, a metaphor as to what it means to be a witnessing people.

It is the story of an old Cambodian man. Through the ministry of faithful followers of Christ, the man came to know Jesus. Something happened in his life that truly changed him and made him a new creature in Christ.

In worship one Sunday his pastor spoke about living for Christ and about being witnesses. The old man felt frustrated. He was old. He couldn’t speak English. He felt helpless, wanting to serve but feeling so inadequate and even out of place. He went to his pastor and explained his frustration. He asked the pastor, “What can I do for my God?” The pastor counseled him to turn that question into a daily prayer, and everyday he prayed, “What can I do for my God, today?”

One day he came up with an idea. He decided to walk up and down the streets of his neighborhood praying for the people in the homes on each street. He didn’t know them, and in many cases couldn’t speak their language. Every day he would keep praying, “What can I do for my God today?” and everyday he would walk and pray.

In time the old man started meeting people, got to know them a little bit, told them he was praying for them that God would blessed and help them; and, he invited them to come his church. Most didn’t but some did, and over the next few years of those who did come to his church, many of them found Christ and joined the church. Some of them were children. They are now adults, active in the church and some of them are pastors in local churches.

WHAT CAN I DO FOR MY GOD TODAY? Not a bad question; not a bad question at all. In fact, it is a great question to ask for disciples of Jesus and for the churches they attend.

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR OUR GOD TODAY? In this place and at this time, WHAT CAN WE DO FOR OUR GOD? Pray it and let God stretch your imagination in His answer to the prayer.

The apostle Paul boldly went on record when he said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel" (Romans 1:16). Paul had a life-changing encounter with Jesus that shook his world, transformed his outlook, and set him on a course to live for Jesus Christ alone.

In 2 Corinthians Paul talks about what it means to be reconciled to Jesus, and about the exciting life of being a communicator of God’s reconciliation. So profoundly changed by the grace of God are we that for the rest of our lives we get to be “Ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20). How about that? Who would have thought it? But there you go; we get to be a part of the story of God in the world.

Jesus saved us and now we get the privilege of telling others about this new and exciting way of life and how they can know Jesus, too. Did you know that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” and that He did this “not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19)? Now, we get to continue that story and that life.

We don’t count people’s sins against them. We love them. We are ambassadors to them. We show folks how much God loves them in their sins and how He can change their lives, so much so that they can walk away from the destructive nature of sin, and come to the abundant life of God in Christ.

The Gospel is Good News, and we are on the front line living it out. The love of Jesus controls us and we know that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away behold, new things have come (2 Cor. 5:17). And, we’re getting the word out.

What does a man on the way to his death think about? I suppose the answer varies with each person but for Jesus He was thinking about the will of the Father. He told His disciples “for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27). Then He said to His Father, “Glorify Your name” (John 12:28). It was tearing at His heart and His soul was troubled, but He would not be deterred.

The truth is that something cataclysmic was under way. Jesus and what He calls “the ruler of this world” in John 12:31 were on a collision course. All of history was coming down to this moment. On Golgotha forces would collide and Jesus would die. In His death, however, the unthinkable, the unimaginable would take place and the ruler of this world would be cast out.

Jesus said that in His being lifted up onto a cross and expiring on that cross He would draw all men to Himself (see John 12:32). The possibilities of redemption would be once and for all forever ingrained into the very fiber of reality. Newton had it right:

Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too!

I believe it is important to recognize that it is to this reality Jesus calls His disciples. He said to them, and through them to us, “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also” (John 12:26). Jesus did not run away from the approaching collision but ran right into it; and so must we. "Where I am, there My servant will be also.”

I have been thinking about Matthew 4:19 where Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This call seems to set the tone for the call of Jesus on the lives of all the disciples.

My thinking here is that our mission as followers of Jesus, as His Church, is to follow Jesus and to participate with Him as He calls people into the kingdom of heaven. I say this because just prior to the calling of Simon and Andrew we read, “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” (Matt 4:17).

As His witnesses it seems to me that a great part of the process of witnessing is to be with people in such away as to reveal to them how pertinent, applicable, germane, significant, and important Jesus is their lives.

John Wesley caught this in his words, “The Church has nothing to do but save souls.” Furthermore, Wesley understood the nature of the mission when he expressed, “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples (see Matt. 28:19-20).

What we proclaim is, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). We proclaim this because Jesus said, “He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

So it is that the Church of 2010 prays and loves and serves, and worships, and evangelizes, and teaches, and baptizes, and makes disciples. We are on a mission because the kingdom of God is at hand, and Jesus is calling people into that kingdom.

I have been thinking about how, in a way, the church ought to be referred to as The Dawning Church. This is based on the words of Matthew 4:16 where Matthew quotes Isaiah 9:2 and then adds personal words to it. He writes,

“The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a Light has Dawned.”

The Dawning Church. It has a sweet ring to it. The light dawns in the land of the shadow of death.

The New Testament calls us to see the church as a living incarnational and missional presence in pursuit of the kingdom of God in a broken and ever changing world.