In 100 AD there were 25,000 Christians on the planet.

By 310, before the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire...there were 20 million.

25,000 to 20 million in about 200 years...what happened?

When Mao Tsetung took power in China and expelled all Christian missionaries from the country, it was estimated that there were about 2 million adherants.  When the Cultural Revolution was rolled back and mission workers returned in the early 80's, they found the Christian church in China had grown to...60 million.  Today, some estimate it is approaching 100 million.

2 million to 60 million in about 40 years...what happened?

Well, we know what didn't happen.  In both cases, Christianity existed as a largely illegal religion, pushed to the fringes of mainstream culture.  There were no church buildings as we know them.  The written scriptures were scarce (in the first centuries of the church the Biblical canon was still incomplete, in China Bibles were shared page by page between house churches).  There were no institutions or professional forms of leadership.  There were no seminaries, publishing houses, parachurch organizations, youth ministries, seeker-sensitive services, evangelistic crusades, worship bands, or marketing campaigns.

In other words, it didn't happen with the methods, techniques and strategies for church growth most of us have known and experienced.

Alan Hirsch tells these stories in his book The Forgotten Ways,"and likens them to the story of Dorothy and her companions in The Wizard of Oz:

After surviving some dangerous encounters with the Wicked Witch of the West and numerous other nasty creatures, they eventually make it to see the Wizard, only to find out he is a hoax...But through all their ordeals and in their final victory they discover that in fact they already have what they were looking for - in fact they had it all along.  They didn't need the Wizard after all; what they needed was a situation that forced them to discover (or activate) that which was already in them.  They had what they were all looking for, only they didn't realize it.

The thesis is that the original church and the church in China found itself in a situation where it had to keep things simple in order to survive.  Their intrinsic DNA found the opportunity to rise to the surface and assert itself on the collective self-consciousness.

Hirsch goes on to say that the fundamental piece of that DNA was the confession that "Jesus is Lord." 

At its very heart, Christianity is therefore a messianic movement, one that seeks to consistently embody the life, spirituality, and mission of its founder.  We have made it so many other things, but this is its utter simplicity.  Discipleship, becoming like Jesus our Lord and Founder, lies at the epicenter of the church's task.  It means that Christology must define all that we do and say.  It also means that in order to recover the ethos of authentic Christianity, we need to refocus our attention back to the Root of it all, to recalibrate ourselves and our organizations around the person and work of Jesus the Lord.

This may all sound very common sense to some church folk, but the reality is that the most common manifestation of Jesus in American Christianity is something less encompassing than this description.  There is a Sunday-Monday dissonance for most.  Jesus is Lord on Sunday mornings or, in the American South, on Wednesday nights, too, in church buildings or home Bible study groups.  But at work, in restaurants and bars, at the hunt camp or in the fishing boat, at the shopping center, Jesus' lordship is in constant and unbalanced competition with other lords.  Becoming like Jesus is only pursued when it is not in direct competition with other priorities, desires, and values...and when it won't risk putting us at odds with others. 

Or when we have no place left to turn.

But what happened in the first two centuries of the church, or what is happening today in China, or among the outcastes in rural India, or in downtown Cairo, or in Korea and Vietnam?

And can it happen among us?

It begins with a singular focus on Jesus, such as what we'll be sharing together these weeks leading up to Easter as we study the "I Am" statements in Vine.  It will be reinforced in the opportunity we will have together in the worship gatherings during this series to experience renewal of baptism, the sign and seal of our intimate, wholehearted and singular covenant relationship with our Redeemer Lord.  It can be strengthened as we all read the Gospels together, and build one another up as we translate reading about Christ into Christlikeness.

Like the Tinman, Lion, Scarecrow and Dorothy, we might find we had it in us all along.

(read Alan Hirsch's "The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church" - Brazos Press, 2006)

When I get in conversations with people who choose not to attend church, I hear a variety of reasons  One which tends to come up often is the feeling that people in the church are judgemental; that if they go, they will be "sized up" or rejected for their lifestyle choices, appearance, or personal beliefs.  Sadly, there are enough stories going around of this actually happening at churches to cement the reputation.

But aren't Christians supposed to be judgemental?  Isn't the world operating in a manner contrary to the Bible?  Aren't we supposed to be the voice calling a sin a sin?  Even if we speak a countercultural message, aren't we supposed to speak God's truth...even if it hurts?

It's not that judging is a bad thing.  We do it all the time.  The problem is we stink at it.

We find it impossibly difficult to keep our need to elevate and validate our egos and beliefs out of the equation, which drives a wedge between ourselves and others when we try to judge.  And, we tend to completely forget that God is the judge and we, if called, are merely his messengers.  But we push God off the judgement seat an plop ourselves down on it, driving a wedge between ourselves and our sovereign God who alone is judge and king of the world.

Mike Yaconelli once wrote, "No wonder I have such a difficult time with judgmental people.  I am one of them.  No wonder I criticize judgemental people so loudly.  If I scream loud enough maybe no one will hear the judgement dripping from my own voice."

So Jesus offers us a far more effective alternative:  compassion.  In the story of Jesus healing the man born blind in John 9:1-7, while the disciple are debating if he is blind because he sinned or his father sin (judging him right in front of his face!) Jesus simply looks at him.  He stops what he's doing, doesn't say a word, and just looks.  He sees a man in need of light.  He doesn't judge him other than to judge the situation: an opportunity to bring glory to God.  He touches, he gives hope...and he is profoundly effective.  Throughout the gospels, we find Jesus approaching tragically broken people and, instead of explaining their sin and its consequences, healed them, touched them, looked at them as people.  When he spoke of sin, it was after the healing when he said, "go and sin no more."

Judging is quick, it doesn't need to see anything because it knows all the categories and answers, involves a lot of talking, is sure of itself, and works best from a superior position.

Looking, showing compassion, is slow, quiet, listening, understanding, outside of any need to justify oneself, and works best when you are side by side with someone, turning them gently to face forward.

This week, as we walk or drive around and see baristas, pedestrians, homeless, handicapped, co-workers, elderly, neighbors, children and spouse, may we all really look at them...as Jesus did.  Put aside our easy, safe, judgemental separation and draw near, understand, and show compassion.