Kingdom Mission: Living Your True North DailySample

In a sports competition, the visiting team often feels uncomfortable playing in front of a hostile crowd and struggles with less-than-ideal accommodations.

Many places today are now described as “post-Christian cultures,” where followers of Jesus are like the visiting team. While not all people are necessarily anti-Christian, Christianity is no longer the default faith. People are skeptical about theology and the church. Many have been hurt by Christians or have watched high-profile failures of Christian leaders.

When we're the visiting team in a post-Christian culture, we need a reliable compass to stay oriented toward our mission. This is why Jesus' model of combining verbal and visual announcements of God's kingdom is crucial for our time.

While working at Starbucks after seminary, I learned the power of this “AND” approach. I had been employed there for about six months, always working the Saturday night closing shift. This meant I was at work until nearly midnight and then had to report to my church job early on Sunday morning. Eventually, this schedule exhausted me, and I began to lose hope about whether my witness was making any difference.

I had been showing up to work consistently, trying to love my coworkers well, serving them, and answering questions when they asked about church and my part-time pastor job. But I wasn't seeing any apparent results.

However, one Sunday evening, five of my coworkers showed up at church! Seeing them in the congregation as I spoke was surreal. The conversations at work the following week were completely different! They had seen me in my element and shared that they now saw the mindset that gave context to my actions.

When I eventually left that job to join our church staff full-time, the send-off my coworkers gave me was unlike anything I had seen before. It was because I had spent months verbally and visually declaring something they had been longing to hear - that they were valued, loved, and that there was hope for their lives.

This is why we can't choose between serving people and sharing the gospel with them. In our current cultural moment, service earns us the right and trust to share verbally. We must break down the barriers that skepticism and past hurts have created.

Throughout his letters, we see how the Apostle Paul cared for people's practical needs, demonstrated Christ's love through actions, and preached the Gospel with bold words.

Peter gives us the perfect balance in his first letter: Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." (1 Peter 3:15 NIV)

Peter assumes that our lives will be so different, so marked by hope and love, that people will ask questions. Our actions create curiosity that opens doors for conversations. Like a sailor who uses true north to read maps and ride out storms, we must always know how to answer those who have questions about why we live with hope.

The question isn't whether evangelism or service is more important. The question is: Are we living in such a way that people want to know why we're different?

Tomorrow, we'll get practical about how to start living this balanced approach, beginning with an honest assessment of where you naturally lean.