I Don't Want to be a Jonah... why being Missional is a necessity

Part I

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” – Christ, John 17:15

I am currently reading through, “They Like Jesus, but not the Church” by Dan Kimball. Pastor Kimball is a pastor of a church out in California, who has spent many years in ministry following the status quo and who woke up one day from the daydream of his “Christian bubble” and was dissatisfied. He talks about his realization that as a Christian and a pastor, an overwhelming majority of his time was spent in the church, with Christians completely involved with Christian meetings, programs, retreats, music, lingo, clothing – all the Christian clichés that so many are familiar with. As he was looking around at all of these things, he realized that slowly, over time, he had neglected his mission as a Christian. He had slowly bowed out of his relationships with non-Christians; he was not involved in any serious outreach ministry.


He began to wonder if this was something he alone was struggling with; he thought, “Surely it must be me!” Therefore, he began to survey all of the staff he worked with, many Christians in his church… and sadly, he realized it was true of all of the people he questioned. They had no non-Christian relationships. He said that he had slipped into the Christian bubble without even noticing it, and he himself was enhancing that bubble, making it stronger and impermeable.


He writes, “Then I began noticing what most of us talk about. Generally, it is the latest Christian band or concert or what is happening at church. As I recognized that we really only socialize with our Christian friends, I also recognized that overall, we are complacent about those outside the church. We are not thinking about their destiny. We are not concerned about whether they are experiencing the abundant life Jesus offers. We are more concerned about whether there will be good snow on our church skiing trip than out the spiritual status of our neighbors and the people we work with every day. I became aware that I didn’t hear much concern about those who don’t know Jesus yet. We are all about making church better for ourselves and making our lives more comfortable in the Christian bubble we have created. I didn’t hear much about being a voice for the voiceless or being concerned with social justice, the poor, AIDS in Africa, and other pressing needs.”


Having been in the Church for nearly 21 years and in Bible College for 3… unfortunately, Pastor Kimball hits the nail on the head in many ways. Not that this generalized sentiment is true of every Christian; but I do believe it is the tone for much of Christianity today.


Pastor Kimball goes on to talk about the transformation many of us experience as new believers in Christ, who are so excited about our faith and absolutely thrilled to share that with everyone that has an ear; he talks about “the transformation from excited missionary into citizen of the bubble”.
Phase 1: We become Christians.

A majority of new believers are on fire. They are so excited about their newly found faith and practically shout it from the mountaintops. The average new believer will tell no less than 20 people about their faith, between family and friends. At this early point in your faith, a majority of people stay close with their non-Christian friends, co-workers and classmates. Not out of obligation, but rather because there are relationships there.


Phase 2: We become part of church life.
New Christians begin to make Christian friends inside the church, getting interested and involved in programs and with people who share the same faith and value systems as themselves. Over time, the contact is less and less with non-Christian friends and more and more with fellow Christians in the church.


Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble.
Pastor Kimball says that in Phase 3 is when drastic changes really begin to take place. “We get more excited about going overseas to the mission field on summer trips than about the mission field we live in every day”. “We begin to see evangelism as something the church does, primarily through events… we start to see evangelism as inviting people to go to a church, where the pastor will do the evangelizing and explain Christianity, instead of spending time with people and talking with them and BEING THE CHURCH TO THEM.”

We have begun talking with our “christianese” or Christian lingo, wearing Christian tee shirts, putting Christian bumper stickers on our cars, silver fish on our bumpers, only Christian music… all of these are enjoyed with our Christian friends. We have become citizens in the bubble.


Phase 4: We become Jonah.
“After several years as citizens of the bubble, we begin to complain and point out the terrible things happening in the culture. Like Jonah in the Hebrew Bible, who ran away when God told him to go to the wicked city of Nineveh (Jonah 1:3), we don’t want anything to do with those who aren’t following God as we are. Like Jonah, we even have a secret sense of delight thinking about how God will one day punish all those sinners in our towns and cities (4:5). Like Jonah, who even after God gave him a second chance and he saw the people of Nineveh repent and cry out to God, complained about not having shade over his head and being uncomfortable (4:8-9), we complain about how well the church is providing what we want and grow number to the fact that people all around us need the love and grace of Jesus”


Another point that I think Pastor Kimball could’ve mentioned here, is that Jonah was mad and begrudged that God did allow the Ninevite’s hearts to be warmed and repent of their ways… it is easy for us to see the wickedness and depravity of our fallen world and happily shrug our shoulders and think to ourselves, “hey, at least one day they’ll get what they deserve”. We have missed the point of the Gospel. I believe Mark Driscoll puts it quite elegantly when he says,


“People are thirsty and we have streams of living water, and if we don’t give it to them they drink out of the toilet just because they’re parched; and the more they drink out of the toilet, the more we say ‘well I can’t be in the world, because it’s a sick dark place.’ Well its sick because people are thirsty, but if you have fresh water, you should give them an alternative to the toilet… so Jesus wants us IN – THIS – WORLD … and we cannot change this world unless we are changed on the inside”


Too often we talk about how sick and disgusted we are with the way things are going in our world and the culture in which we live. The radical right wing freely bashes any number of people outside of the church and who do not know Christ as Savior, and we talk about depravity and wickedness… have we forgotten an important point? Why would you expect unbelievers to live as unbelievers? Are we over-looking the fall, when we are evaluating the world?


….more to come on these thoughts soon.
-ACN