The question was something like “what do we do as a church to reach the marginalized?”  Well, I have some thoughts…

First, we need to determine if “the church” really wants to reach the marginalized.  There’s a lot of talk about being in church (meaning attending the Sunday and Wednesday gatherings) and it’s something that I’m careful about agreeing with.  If the idea is to attend church because that’s the place to be and the right thing to do, then I hesitate to join the bandwagon.  I grew up hearing I needed to be at church (meaning the building) whenever the doors opened but I didn’t know God and didn’t really know what living as a disciple meant.  I’ve come to believe that some churches mimic the Pharisees in their legalistic definition of what church attendance should be.  Remember, these are my opinions.  Anyway, I heard a lot about “do not forsake the assembly” (you can look it up) but it seems like the story about Jesus healing on the Sabbath is only used as fodder for talking about the Pharisees and seldom, if ever, used as an example of us getting out of the building and going to help the marginalized/lost/starving/homeless/naked/drug addicted/porn addicted/sex addicted/et.al.  I’ve taken the approach that it doesn’t matter if I’m at a church service or not if my mind and actions are on serving God and exemplifying discipleship.  I can be at a baseball game, volleyball game, the lake, the mall, wherever and if showing true Christ-likeness is at the forefront of my thoughts and actions, I may be in a better place to reach the hurting than if I was occupying a cozy cushion in our comfy church building.  Some may ask why I think those places are better than church and I don’t want to insinuate that’s always the case but I can tell you I have had some positive discussions about Jesus at a baseball tournament on a Sunday to someone who was very skeptical of religion.  I don’t know that I ever changed his mind but we talked about Christ much more than we would have had I been at church with other people who aren’t on the margins.  Just a thought.

Second, what if the church gave everyone or every family walking in the building on Sunday morning $20-50 cash and said to “bless someone with it.”  Now, if it’s a family that is hurting financially, they can keep it.  If not, I wonder what putting cash in the hands of someone professing to be a Christ follower would cause them to do.  Would they go look for someone to help?  Their children do it when performing random acts of kindness and I bet the families would do it too…likely in creative ways.  If the church did this, it would be an institution truly calling it’s members to action and I believe most of the members would respond favorably.  

So what does the church do to reach the marginalized.  Open their doors and challenge it’s people to get outside, to find the people who are in the marginalized target market, and to do something for them.  

Just saying…

Grace and peace.