I’ve been interested recently as I have been seeing just how much this idea or mindset has permeated our church culture. “Us” being the Church, and “Them” being the world or non-believers, or gays, or liberals, or anybody else who doesn’t believe like we do, worship like we do, or have church like we do.
It’s find it easy to fall into this where I am, a growing congregation with tons of vision and lots of ministries. It’s become easy for me to write off others who maybe aren’t doing some of the things that OUR church is doing. Being so busy with OUR fathers business, other churches don’t matter, especially THEIR vision, or THEIR people or THEIR calling.
Peter and whole gang of disciples had this same issue. “WE are God’s chosen people.” And they were, it’s just that God wanted to pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh. So God had to put Peter into a trance and challenge his thinking radically. Acts 10:9-16 recounts the story. “Rise, Peter, kill and eat…What God has cleansed you must not call common.”
Then men came from Cornelius’ house and summoned Peter. The Spirit told him to go, and listen to what he says when he gets there. “You know how it is unlawful for a Jewish man to keep company with, or go to one of another nation.” You see God wants a pure people. But their purity was a result of their actions, their affiliations, and keeping of rituals and the like. I recently heard Bill Johnson explain it this way. “The Old testament can be summed up to the power of sinfulness. You touch the leper, you become unclean. But the New Testament is about the power of Holiness. You touch the leper, the leper becomes clean.”
So the Spirit had to dislodge Peter from his traditions and religious laws to open a door for the entire Gentile world to receive from God. How pivotal is this portion of the Bible! History hinges on this passage. Maybe the Spirit has been speaking to you about what is really clean, and what you need to do to open a new door for a community to come into the fullness of His Kingdom. There seems to be a fresh awakening of social activism and a desire for connection with the world outside our four walls.
Its interesting how the Jews thought of the Gentiles, and now us gentiles think about “the world”.
But I believe it starts with us contending to rid ourselves of this “Us and Them” way of thinking. I was thinking about this the other day, how before I met Jesus, there were certain events and things that happened that led me to the point of making a decision for Him. I was on a path of head-on collision with the Kingdom of God. There were people praying for me, standing on my behalf before God’s throne. And then I had an encounter with His love that radically changed my life. But I was on the journey just the same before I encountered His love. Luke 16:16 says that the Kingdom of Heaven is preached and everyone is pressing into it. But we see not all men pressing into it, so we dismiss it and put it off in the millennial Kingdom that is to come. But what I’m seeing is that everyone is on a journey, and they don’t even know that they are about to encounter the greatest lover of all time. So rather than write off those “gentiles”, we need to do like Peter, go into their homes and expos and pride parades, and show them a better way. The way of Love.
The Lion's Den 
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September 8, 2008 at 7:05 pm
brianfosterkane
Wow.
September 8, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Rafael
Hey, my name is Rafael and I’m a friend of Brian’s from Mosaic, though don’t confuse me with someone in your “Us” crowd. All your posts seem like you’re an open guy but pretty blind all the same. Although you talk about community and breaking down the “us” and “them” mentality, you seem pretty convinced that your “Us” crowd is right. Your blogs are written with lots of Bible references, but I don’t own a Bible, so they don’t really impact me much except to make it clear you’re in a catagory I’m not.
You said in your blog that God wants to pour out his spirit on all flesh, and I think you meant all christian flesh. You said “It’s become easy for me to write off others who maybe aren’t doing some of the things that OUR church is doing. Being so busy with OUR fathers business, other churches don’t matter, especially THEIR vision, or THEIR people or THEIR calling.” It sounds like the “others” are people who are actually pretty much like you. Do you talk to other people too? My friends at the pub don’t use words like “vision” or calling”. You want to eliminate the “Us and Them” vibe, but your words say other wise.
Now Brian is a guy I respect and he speaks highly of you, so I don’t want you to feel I’m slagging on you because that really isn’t my heart. I’m just wondering who the audience is that you want your blog to be read by? When I think of Christians I often think of this, “You invented the words, and you made the dictionary and you gave me the dictionary and you said, ‘These are what the words mean.’ Well, this is what they mean to you, but to someone else, they have got a different dictionary.'” ~Charles Manson.
If your open to discussion, I’d like to understand more of why you believe almost blindly what you do. It must be pretty powerful, but in it, is there room for someone like me? If you have some time, I have a blog you can reach me through on Brian’s page called “Baroquen Windows”.
Peace,
~Rafael