Cold Days at the Beach

Once, during early autumn, I was in North Carolina at a wedding rehearsal in a little country church somewhat off the beaten path. When everyone arrived, they moved to the sanctuary to begin the walk-through and to finalize the last-minute details for the ceremony the next day.

Since I did not have any real role to play except to attend the ceremony (I was just along for the ride), while everyone settled into position and sound checks were in progress, I slipped out the door to retrieve some papers from the car to catch up on some work. When I got to the church doors again, I found them locked and heard the muffled sound of the pastor beginning the rehearsal. Not wishing to disturb matters, and since the rural location meant no cell service anyway, I moved to the reception hall entrance and discovered it was secure too. Trying two other doors yielded the same result. I was locked out of church. I thought, “Sooner or later, someone will miss me…maybe.”

With nothing else to do, I stood outside under a swaying Carolina Pine as the night breeze cooled rapidly and the last crickets of summer lazily called and answered each other across the churchyard with long, slow chirps as the mercury dropped steadily. Noticing the stained-glass windows of the old church, I began to walk around the building in the dark to examine them. Each window depicted a different event related to Jesus, starting with his birth and ending with his return to earth. Stopping at the window showing the crucifixion, I stood bathed in the shaft of crimson-colored light outside in the cold darkness while everyone else prepared for the celebration inside.

I thought, “How many people stand outside of a life with Jesus, or are isolated from walking alongside the people of God, and they see the light from a distance and hear the celebration, but no one invites them inside?” They find themselves, for lack of a better way of saying it, “locked out.”

This incident rushed back to my mind a few months ago as I was approached by a woman after service. Hers was a familiar face; my wife and I had met her one evening at our church's vacation bible school a few months ago. On the night of our first meeting, she came in with a friend, told us about how she had made a series of decisions she regretted and wanted to see her life redirected toward Jesus. She had recently made a decision to follow Christ and was dealing with the accumulated consequences and circumstances connected to the things of her past. We talked for a while, prayed, and invited her to join us on Sunday. She said that she would see us soon, but we had lost contact after that moment.

But then, on Sunday, she and her boyfriend rushed down the aisle after service to speak with my wife and me privately. She explained some of the difficulties she had experienced since our last conversation and told us that since her surrender to Christ, things had become more heated in her spiritual life: more battles, more conflict, more temptations.

And then, near the end of our conversation, she said, "We have been watching your church services online by phone every Sunday from the beach just over there."

It bears mentioning that the church I currently pastor is situated on the shore of the Little Tennessee River. Just across a small bay from the church lies the city park and a short stretch of sand called "the beach." This was the spot from which she and her boyfriend had been watching services.

She sheepishly looked down at the floor as she continued, "I don't know why we just watched from there for weeks now. I guess we were afraid to come inside, and I was still terrified of walking in today."

I looked at them and, feeling a number of emotions welling up inside, managed to say, "I'm so glad that you made the choice to be here in person. Please keep coming; we'll be looking for you."

Now here stood this person, dealing with the fears and uncertainties of life, who felt like she could not walk through the doors of our church, so instead she chose to watch worship services from just 300 yards away.  

Understand, I am not casting blame on anyone for this particular situation. We have many people here at the church who invite others and who are active in sharing their faith with people; we also have many who do not. Nor am I saying that the problem rests fully upon this young woman's shoulders for living with a fear-tinted view of how she might be received.

My point is not about assigning blame, but about recognizing that we can overlook the great need that exists all around each of us.    

With in the church, we can become so polarized and develop tunnel vision so that we…

• View new people or new approaches as threats to our idolatrous status quo.

• Shrink back from revealing Christ to a lost and sin-controlled world out of fear or neglect.

• Care more about how to keep long-term, consumer-minded congregants happy than care about where the people we encounter daily will spend eternity.

When we see any of those mindsets and patterns develop, then we must if we take Jesus’ words seriously. After all, he did say, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19a).

Despite what many misguided and wrong-headed people might mistakenly believe, making disciples is not exclusively the responsibility of the pastor; it is the call for every Christian. (Click here for more on this topic.)

This is why, when church members ask, “When are we going to do something here at the church to reach people?” The weightier question must be asked of them, “What are you doing now?” The reality is that some of us are doing something. It’s just that too few are.

No true Christian in passionate pursuit of Jesus needs a heavily marketed and highly programmed initiative to step out in faith and take the daily steps to do the work that God has called us to do. Following any command of Jesus does not require a new "church program" or "special committee." It requires individual, obedient hearts that desire to follow God's will and trust in the power of his Word.

The couple I mentioned earlier are now married and are active members of our church. After that conversation in the aisle that Sunday, later that same week, early in the morning, I drove over to the park and walked down to the beach.

I stood there and looked across the way at the church and tried to imagine what that couple felt while sitting there watching services online. The moment took me back to that night as I stood outside that little country church years earlier.

For every follower of Jesus reading this, hear me and mark these words well.

Each of us must unlock the door, step outside our comfort zone, and invite those who stand frozen in the night or watching from a distance on a spiritually frigid beach, to join the celebration, because every person you meet is either still in the cold or has been brought out of the cold.

If you know Jesus now, it is because someone shared with you. That is the reason. The Gospel is the reason. God’s grace was extended to you and someone told you about it.

The only hope for any of us is embodied in the eternal truth that was shining upon my face from the old, stained-glass window all those years ago depicting the cross of Christ: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12).