Denominations and witnessing

I think that the use of denominations has been severely misused over the years, maybe always. I understand that a denominational name describes the way in which people worship. eg. methodists are methodical but when I say I am a Christian, I hate being asked What kind? What does it matter what kind? In my mind there are no kinds. A person is either a Christian or they are not. Is one denomiation better than another? I don't think so.

There does seem to be a bit of a status thing about which denomiational church you attend. People are either impressed or wary once you divulge that you go to an independant or pentecostal church and if you say you go to a more traditional church like anglican or united reformed then it is recieved with either a grunt or relief.

For non-Christians, this must be linked with the fear of suddenly being pushed into a theological discussion with an obvious point of trying to convert them. In my experience subtlty is not always a strong point in the 'nutty' pentecostals and I am sure this is due to contstantly being taught to make the most of every opportunity. I have rarely had practical advice from a pentecostal church about how to witness to people around me without ramming the Bible down their throat at every concievable opportunity.

At the other extreme more traditional churches seem to have next to no teaching on how to witness to people because they are so subtle and rightly practice witnessing by example, that the people around them are completely unaware that they are trying to witness at all and in many cases a large proportion of people simply don't witness at all.

In my mind there needs to be a balance of living what you believe and therefore witnessing through example to also not being afraid to bring up theological discussions when they arise and yet also not shoving it onto people who are not ready to listen. You need to keep on the ball, always looking for an opportunity but you also need to be sensitive to the bigger picture. For example, sometimes a person just needs a friend rather than a lecture.

For a person who is a Christian, regardless of how they worship and which denomination they attend this should be possible. Everyone has different areas of giftings and some need to stretch themselves more and others need to put the brakes on a tad. Everyone needs to work at it.

It is all pointless though if the church is unprepared for the needy, unchurched, undisciplined people to turn up. Alpha and just looking type courses are great and serve a purpose but not every person who braves it across the threshold of your church will come through that system. They may just walk off the street. Seriously, how would your church react to having a dirty scruffy roudy possibly drunk homeless person sat at the back unable to sit still? Would they really accept them? Would they really welcome them? If a church can't adapt to having children running around how will they accept an adult disrupting the proceedings. I was asked to leave a service one because people were watching my son crawl down the isle rather than listening to the sermon, would an adult also be asked to leave if they didn't conform to the normal expected behaviour?

Numbers of children in church are going down, I believe because churches are not prepared for children to come. Most churches are willing to provide a service for families and children but only if there are already children to provide for and if numbers are not satisfactory the creche or toddler group or kids club or holiday club gets scrapped. We need to set up projects without there already being people attending and when there is nobody there we need to pray that people come. We need to walk around the area you live praying as you go for the people who live there and don't come to you. Then when people start turning up you need to pray for them that they continue coming. Nothing happens without prayer. So why is church not filled with addicts, homeless people, drunks. Why is the church filled with well-behaved middle-class well-meaning people? Why is it that people do not feel able to come to church? It is because we are human and we do hesitate at the idea of greeting someone with a kiss when they obviously haven't had a bath in a long while. Secretly we don't want them to come too often because then we'd have to accept them. We want them to change and have what we have as long as we don't have to be around for the process of change. As long as we don't have to cope with the before state of a person. No wonder they aren't keen to turn up. Our friends or strangers who appear to be like us, no problem, the love is there. But these are the people who already know about God's love. We don't need to witness God's love to the people who already know about it, although it is easier and it is nice to be reassured of this.

It is the dirty, smelly, unpleseant, rude, criminal, lost people who need God's love. They are the people who don't know about him. They are the people who are going to suffer if you ignore them.

It is a sad thing to think about but when I was younger and was being encouraged to witness to friends I was at a lost because I didn't have friends who weren't already Christians. But this is no excuse. If you only socialise with Christians you are living in a bubble. There are plenty of people every day that you walk past without noticing them. Keep your eyes open. Ask God to keep your eyes open. Witnessing is not always about going in for the kill and it is not about blindly handing out tracts but it needs to be done and God will show you how if you ask him to. I know I always need to try harder with this.