Ulterior Motives?
So last week I did this series and in one of the comments a person wrote:
This is like those “Random Acts of Kindness” stuff where in reality you want people to notice it was you doing it and then come to your group. It may be clever, but in the end–you’re getting more.
This kind of thinking is en vogue right now. The idea that when we (as a church) serve people we shouldn’t let them know who we are or what church we represent because if we do we’re serving with an ulterior motive. That it makes our serving “less than” because we’re hoping that people will show up at our church because of it.
Okay, seriously, if that line of thinking is right, then I need to get out of ministry RIGHT NOW. Are we serious? If I serve someone and in doing so my ultimate hope is that the person will show up at my church and hear the gospel and begin a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and spend all eternity in Heaven with God, you’re telling me that’s wrong?!?!
Paul said he would do anything to help people hear the gospel and know Jesus, but if my random act of kindness is designed to help people hear the gospel and know Jesus that means I have tainted motives?!
Let me put this another way. No one ever told me about Jesus. I didn’t even come into contact with the gospel until I was twenty years old. And if I found out that at some point in my first twenty years you (as a Christian) had served me through some “random act of kindness” but didn’t use the opportunity to try and (in a gentle way) point me to Jesus and the gospel (or to a church where I could connect with Jesus and the gospel) I would beat the crap out of you. Seriously. Do you not care that I’m living life without God? Do you not care that I have no purpose and no hope? Do you not care that I’m going to Hell?
It makes me wonder what in the world people (like the person who wrote that comment) think of the church, if they assume that it’s selfish to want people to come? We don’t want people to show up to pad our attendance or giving numbers, it’s so they can meet Jesus. And so I hope that every person I serve comes to church. And if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.