Incarnational Ministry

If you don't already know, I'm a fan of Classic Rock music... actually all music other than country L. The first cassette tape I bought in my teens was "The Best of the Doobie Brothers." The neighborhood kids were singing the chorus to the song "Black Water" on the bus ride home from school and I wanted to learn the lyrics to the song--especially the chorus:

"Play some funky dixieland, pretty mama gonna take me by the hand…"

I wore that tape out!

There was another song on that tape that I grew to love--"Takin' It to the Streets." The lyrics, in part, go like this:

Take this message to my brother, You will find him everywhere, Wherever people live together, Tied in poverty's despair

I like this song and these lyrics because I'm reminded of what we are supposed to do as a church. We are to take the message to the streets, just like Jesus did. We are expected to be incarnational in our ministry approach.

"The doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ is the belief that the second person in the Christian Godhead, also known as the Son or the Logos (Word), "became flesh" when he was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary" (Wikipedia). 

This is the basic teaching of Philippians 2:6–7:

"Who being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." 

In that same chapter we are encouraged to be like Christ. We are called to be incarnational in our approach to the world. We are to imitate Christ—to leave our culture or our comfort zone and take the Love next door, down the street, to the people we rub up against who are very different from us. They might not go to church; they probably talk differently than we do; they may even dress differently; they may not even like us. We are called to serve them, to meet them, to befriend them, to LOVE them. We can't do that effectively within the confines of our church. We need to "take it to the streets." 

This is my desire for our church; that we as a people will be burdened and passionate about reaching out to our community. Pray with me that this zeal for others would grow and our church would experience the growth of God's Kingdom as a direct result.