Come

I have been apart of way too many church meetings where we tried to brainstorm how to get people to come to our event/gathering. We would sit and rack our brains for hours on end trying to find that one thing that will burst the dam. A creative spark that result in the salvation for hundreds. Most of the time we came up with some pretty clever marketing campaign.

My roommate thought of this idea: In a few weeks FCA at Clemson will be in a series called Fight Club. People were tying their hardest to think of a clever way to get students from all over campus to come. Dan, who is always off in some distant island in his imagination, suddenly had an amazing idea. The idea was to stage a fight on campus in between class changes. The fight would last for about 2 minutes and then it would spontaneously break up. Those involved would then pass out cards to invite students to the gathering. I liked the idea and its creativity.

Do we have to sell the gospel in this way? Why is that we feel like we need to create a teaser for people to come to our event? Isn’t the gospel enough?

I am beginning to realize that people are not going to come unless we give them something they want. Do our creative ideas resemble that fact? Would most people come to a known ‘Christian’ event because of a comedic fight broke out in front of them? Some would… but I think many are going to laugh, put the card in their pocket, and never think twice about changing their Thursday night plans. The meeting isn’t meeting their needs, but it sure is funny to watch them try.

What do people need? I think this is a more suitable place to find how to creatively bring people into the doors to hear the gospel. College students are desperately in need of acceptance. They deal with loneliness and singleness. Often, students are blind to the cultures around them.

How do we solve this? I think in the creative arts realm we need to be more keen to ask the question, “What do they need?” Obviously people need Jesus, but even Jesus didn’t just give himself. He gave the blind eyes to see. He made the lame walk. He provided the party with wine. Jesus met the needs of people, and in response they found him as their Lord.

What are the needs of our communities? Maybe we even need to ask this question: Who and where is our community? These questions will answer our longing for people to come and know Christ. We should structure our planning around how to meet the needs of others. By doing this we will take the first step into creating meaningful environment. It will create a place that is simply irresistible.