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Invitability

Invest & Invite, part 3
Invitability
Acts 17:15-34

Do you remember back in school choosing teams for kickball or dodge ball? Maybe it was a different sport, but can you remember the awkwardness of waiting to get chosen? The power over how uncomfortable I got waiting and waiting rested with whoever was named the team coach as they chose their team, one by one. In the church world, the power shifts back to the players. It is the players who choose the team they want to play on; people choose the church they want to attend rather than the church choosing the people. So, how do you choose a church? Some people choose it based on preaching, some based on the music, and some based on the kids or students programs. Yet, the research on why people choose the church they do consistently points to people will go to church where someone they have a friendship or relationship invites them to. The research reveals that the church can do all it wants to reach out, but people come based on relationships and feeling invited.

Did you know that the apostle Paul also chose teams? Prior to the apostle Paul’s second missionary journey, an issue surfaced that divided the original missionary team of Paul and Barnabas into two teams. The issue during the first missionary journey was with a 3rd guy, John Mark because he abandoned them along the way. Now, on the second missionary journey, Barnabas insisted they take John Mark along, while Paul refused to do so. Barnabas insisted they take his cousin, but Paul had no confidence in him and did not think it wise to take a deserter. So, they split into two teams: Barnabas took John Mark and Paul took Silas. They had different visions, different missions, different goals, but they were unified in Christ.

Today, I will lay out our overall vision for our church. Consider this our hand being extended to you asking you to join this church’s vision, our mission, and our goals to reach a community for Jesus Christ. It is our prayer that if God so directs you, today you will affirm your partnership with us.

We believe our church’s vision closely parallels the apostle Paul as is explained in Acts chapter 17. Not only does it lay out a foundation for our vision, but I can also show you why I just plain like this guy. He is somebody I would have liked to know and worked along side.

vv.15-16 “The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”

It appears that Paul had no set plans to evangelize Athens, at least not until he was joined by his companions and colleagues. He has been escorted to Athens by some believers from Berea, for his own protection. Yes, Paul often found trouble in cities by simply preaching Jesus. So, he just left a city for his own safety, and he is in Athens hanging out. Paul gave instructions to send his team as quickly as possible. So it seems that Paul had some to time to kill in Athens. As much as anything, Paul was a tourist, going about the city, soaking up its history and culture and visiting its many magnificent sights and attractions. What might Paul have seen while in Athens?

Of all the things Paul saw, one seemed to make a great impression on him. It was not that Athens was beautiful, or one of the great cultural and intellectual centers of the world. It was not that great men, like Plato and Aristotle once walked the streets and taught there. But instead, it was that this great city was filled with ungodly idols. Paul was incensed and offended by the idols. The idol worship of Athens was condemnable. Paul was struck by the spiritual lostness of this city, and the judgment of God that would come to each person someday. He knew these people needed a Savior, so Paul being run out of Berea for his life now begins to talk to people in the marketplace of Athens. v.17 “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.” This is his down time, he can relax and be a tourist for a little while. But no, Paul has already jumped out of the boiling water and Paul has already taken his first step out of the boat.

Paul’s ministry was first to the synagogue filled with outwardly religious people. But, then we see that here Paul is opening up to reaching the culture, reaching those who are not involved in church. Paul is talking to people in the marketplace, normal people, people who grew up in the Greek school system learning about the Greek gods, children being raised by Christ-less parents, adults who are entrenched in their culture – these are the people who were thinkers, philosophers. Paul not only wanted to build up church goers, but he wanted to reach people. These would be people like those who we walk by, work along side, live next to.

As we go deeper into Paul’s Athens experience, we can pick up the cues from the cultural context for the basis of our vision

1. If you have something relevant to say in the culture, people will listen.

vv.18-20 “A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." The opportunity to speak in the synagogue/church was a matter of custom; but the invitation to preach to pagan, ungodly philosophers was rarer. Paul was given this rare opportunity in Athens, during his downtime as he waited for his team to arrive. Why? Because Paul was starting from a point that was culturally relevant.

2. You don’t need to be perceived as brilliant for people to want to listen to you.

Why did Paul connect with this group and get a rare chance to talk to them? It was not because they thought Paul was brilliant, they called him a babbler. Philosophers in Athens highly valued to learn something new. v.21 “(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)” The opportunity was not because of who Paul was; it was not because of Paul’s eloquence or his education; instead, Paul got the opportunity to talk with strangers because Paul spoke their cultural language. Their motive for Paul to speak was not noble, but Paul seized the opportunity that was good enough for him.

3. When you invite someone to a church event, there is probably a real disconnect between you and them.

“If the motivation of this group was less than ideal, so was the mood with which they gathered and listened. … It was a somewhat cynical, skeptical mood, one which had already concluded that the subject matter was not only new, but foreign, not only in origin, but to their taste in religion. Paul was not looked upon with respect. They cared not that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, and that he could expound the Old Testament with accuracy and authority. To these arrogant philosophers Paul was a “hick,” a nobody, a collector of religious scraps, from the gutters of the world. It was more out of a lack of something better to do, more out of an idle speculative curiosity that they gathered to hear him. If nothing else, they could heckle him and have a good laugh out of the episode. In short, Paul was a foolish man, advocating a foolish and worthless religion. Nonetheless, they would listen to him, for the sake of curiosity and speculation, not for the sake of truth.” B.D.

4. Because of the disconnect, we need to be certain to start with the audience’s own point of reference; i.e., be relevant to them, in their own cultural language.

Paul standing before the group of philosophers immediately turned to a point of reference which was well known to his audience. Somewhere in Athens was an alter, dedicated to an unknown God. vv.22-23 “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” “Don Richardson tells a fascinating story of the “altar to the unknown god,” referred to by Paul in Acts chapter 17. This story is based upon a number of historical documents and sources, which Richardson cites in his book. In short, the story begins sometime in the sixth century before Christ, with the city of Athens being devastated and decimated by a mysterious plague. When no explanation for the plague could be found, and no cure was in sight, the approach was to assume that one of the city’s many gods had been offended. The leaders of the city sought to determine which of the gods it was and then determine a way of appeasing that god. This was no easy task, since the city of Athens had literally hundreds of gods, which Richardson refers to as the “god capital of the world,” a place so full of gods that the Athenians “must have needed something equivalent to the Yellow Pages just to keep tabs on the many deities already represented in their city.” When all efforts failed to discern which god had been offended, and which had brought the plague upon the city, an outside “consultant” was brought in from the Island of Cyprus, whose name was Epimenides. Epimenides concluded that it was none of the known gods of Athens which had been offended, but some, as yet, unknown god. He proposed a course of action which, if it worked, would at least provide a possible remedy for the plague. He had a flock of choice sheep, of various colors, kept from food until they were hungry. On the given day, he had these sheep turned loose on Mars Hill, on what was a very succulent pasture. For any sheep not to have eaten his fill would have been unexplainable. He had the sheep turned loose and watched carefully, to see if any sheep would lie down and not eat, even though hungry and in prime grazing. Several sheep, to the amazement of those watching, did lie down. Altars were erected at each spot where a sheep lay down, dedicated to an “unknown god.” On those altars, the sheep which lay in that spot was sacrificed. Almost immediately, we are told, the plague began to subside. Over a period of time, the altars were forgotten, and began to deteriorate. One altar, it seems, was restored and preserved, in commemoration of the removal of the plague by calling upon the “unknown god.” Who would have thought that centuries later, a foreigner named Paul would refer to this altar as the starting point for his sermon on Mars Hill?” BD

How do these 4 points help you? Let me take them in the order I presented them.

1. Our foyers are created to be culturally relevant, so we believe people will come to listen if you tell them and point them in the right direction.

2. You do not need to be seen as a great Christian, or a Bible know it all. That may even work against you. Instead, people want to see authenticity. Do you go to what you are inviting them to? Do you love it? Do your kids love it? Is it helping you and changing you? You need to be involved in our foyers, you need to be helping us make them awesome invitable places. And, you need to let people hear you talk about them.

3. Don’t worry too much about your friends’ expectations of the event. Don’t even think too much about how they react or think about it. Just invest in the friendship and invite them. Let God do the work to reveal their spiritual connection and depth to truth.

4. Finally, we come back to be relevant to where your friends and invitees are culturally. Help us know if we are creating the environments that are good starting points; that is, are we starting with stuff they are interested in.

Romeo’s foyer strategy is to create “invitability” and initiate a spiritual conversation.

Define Romeo’s Vision

Our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. We desire to accomplish this by helping people experience 3 environments of a home: the foyer, the living room and the kitchen. The foyer offers relevant environments that begin to connect people into a relationship with Jesus. From the foyer, we desire to create strategic and obvious steps into the living room where we are meeting now for Sunday morning worship. But, we know that the real good talks, the life changing stuff happens when we talk in the kitchen. So from the living room, we invite people into the kitchen or small groups.

What are Romeo’s foyer ministries

Today, we are talking about identifying people, investing in friendships and inviting them to a foyer environment. We have created these to be culturally relevant, and environments that our people love and their lives are impacted. Let me introduce you to the foyer environments that we have completed and the ones in progress.

    * Kids – Mainstreet

      www.romeokids.com

    * Students – Lightforce

      www.lightforceministries.com

    * College and Young Adults – Elevate

      www.elevatenorth.com/dev

    * Adult singles

      This is only in the early planning stages. I don’t have too much to report yet.

    * Married couples – Married Life

      www.romeomarriage.com

    * The Romeo Peach Magazine

Conclusion

By creating these culturally relevant foyer environments, we are trying to help you take your friendships to the next level. We want you to invite your family, friends and others to these events because we believe that the Bible calls us to a life mission similar to the apostle Paul. We are to talk about what we believe and what is changing our lives. If they connect with the foyer events, the next step is to invite them to church. From church, we will invite them into small groups. It is you who is empowered with the choice of teams. Is this the team for you? If it is, then maybe it is also the team for people who you love.

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