InReach

Though I now live in South Africa, I still receive updates on the effect InReach is having in Nigeria. (For anyone who doesn't know, InReach was devised by myself and a colleague, inspired by our work with different communities in Nigeria. It's a series of conversations focussing on relationships and the love between Jesus, the individual and those close by.  InReach tries to encourage all who call themselves followers of Jesus to truly and actively live his love to their neighbours and so transform the world.) God is using the InReach conversations to bring amazing changes to the lives of believers and those who were born into another faith.

I recently came across the following which I wrote some time ago, thinking of InReach. I thought it wouldn't do any harm to post it.

The world can be a lonely place.  Sometimes as you look around it seems as if everyone except yourself has deep and fulfilling relationships, lots of friends, groups to belong to and a sense of security.  What do you do?

Shyly you join an existing group or programme, hovering at the edges, longing for someone to invite you to come closer, to welcome you in.  Gradually you start to learn the rules of your new group and you keep them religiously, afraid that any transgression will see you cast back into the wilderness.  Eventually you can look around and feel that you belong.

You belong but you never feel truly secure.  What would happen if you missed a meeting or ignored a tradition?  Would you still be loved and accepted or shunned and reviled?  You don’t know for sure and you’re afraid to find out.  You keep the customs through fear, not conviction that they represent the best way to live.

One day someone new wants to join your group but he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about keeping the rules.  You feel threatened.  You insist on the sanctity of doing things the way they’ve always been done.  People know who you are and expect you to uphold the traditions of the group, you can’t let your image be damaged.  You complain about the new person and try to get him to conform or leave.  Eventually he does; not accepted for who he is, just judged for how well he kept to your conventions.

This group could be a church denomination or programme, a social society or sports club, anywhere that people gather and devise traditions and rules specific to themselves to distinguish between “us” and “them”.  Often upholding the rules becomes more important than family, friends or people’s feelings.

Jesus had no time for divisive rules, laws which became more important than the heart of his gospel message of love.  No one knows better than him how humans need a sense of community.  We’re made in the image of God: God whose very being is always in loving relationship - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  No one was more ready than Jesus to smash through rules of convention to reach the heart of the person.

We all need love.  We all need relationships.  It’s the way humans are made, but we’ll never find true satisfaction in manmade rules that fence us in to keep others out.

Surrender to Jesus’ love.  Accept the freedom he gives to surpass convention and reflect God’s love to all you meet.  As John Stott wrote, be a “radical conservative” like Jesus.  Conservative in regard to the clear teachings of Scripture but totally radical in refusing to be bound by unnecessary social conventions.  Live the Love.