Gospel in a Box

So a few weeks ago I was bummed to realize that I was bringing un-Christian friends to church to "hear the Gospel." I know that sounds weird, but I was honestly disappointed. You know why? Becasue I started beleiveing the lie that I have to take people to a place, a building, essentially a box with four walls and a professional speaker in order to deliver the gospel message. Since when did the Gospel happen only in a box?

The reality is that the Gospel is a story. Stories are so much bigger than places. Stories can be told whether you're in a building or in your neighbor's front yard. As soon as you start beleiveing that you have to bring your un-Christian friends to "church" to hear the Gospel is the instant you have an anorexic view of the God who is everywhere. If you want to share the Gospel, simply live out your story. I promise you, people will experience the gospel, but it will not be bound by a time or a location.

I play volleyball with a bunch of un-Christians on Saturday mornings. One thing I've noticed is how bold they are when they talk about their sexual escapades and how amazingly stupid drunk they got the night before. One time, a dude named Ty I was playing with turned around in between plays and said, "Hey beautiful, I wanna lick your pussy"' to a random girl walking by. I finally spoke up! "If you ever fucking say shit like that on my fucking court, you're not gonna play Ty. That is so fucking disrespectful." Unbelievably, the guy apologized to me.

Why did it take me that long to speak up for what I believe? Because somewhere deep inside, I am not convinced that God and his story is something that people actually need. The walls of unbelief inside us all, keep us from living the Gospel. If I have not experienced the whole gospel as a freeing, life-changing, counter-cultural gift from the loving God, I will share it with a half-passion or no passion at all. So here's my challenge: If you are not living the gospel, check and see if you actually have experienced the full gospel.

What do I mean the full gospel? I mean the gospel where people get healed of their diseases, emotional wounds are turned to scars that no longer hurt, demons are being exposed and cast out, and your life is one big adventure that cannot be explained apart from a risk-taking God. If you have expereinced this, you will not hesitate to share it. The Gospel will be like a baby that you have actually given birth to, with all it's joy and pain, and now all you want to do is show it off, tell how much it weighs and let people hold it. If you are like me, I have miles on the journey to go in experiencing that kind of gospel. But as I experience more and more, I am further convinced that the gospel is not simply told, it is experienced, lived, and given away. My life is becoming exposed, outside the walls of a building, my story is becoming living, breathing, and transformative because I am experiencing the transformative God. Sharing the gospel is becoming a lifestyle that happens when I'm at the bar, in my home, surfing, watching a movie, reading, getting coffee, and laughing. My story, swallowed whole by the story of Jesus, is the Gospel. My "Gospel in a Box" just became the "Gospel that is Everywhere and Anytime."