Mass Producing

Americans love to mass produce.  We are in love with growth, numbers, increase, productivity.  We love to get the highest output with the lowest input (profit).  But that mindset clashes with the kingdom of God mindset.  God isn’t impressed by numbers (it’s probably hard to be impressed with numbers when you own everything in the universe).  In fact, it seems like when I read the Bible he usually likes His children to be the underdog.  Outnumbered.  He likes to stack the deck against us, so that He gets the glory when we are delivered.  He doesn’t seem impressed by efficiency and productivity, but He does seem to care an awful lot about relationship. 

God is moving our hearts to start a church that slows down, and doesn’t become obsessed with mass production, but rather becomes obsessed with loving people the way Jesus did.  We want to make disciples and we realize that making disciples takes TIME.  It takes relationship.  It’s not about going to an event, praying a prayer, going through a 6-week course, being assimilated into a church, and then… voila!  We have made disciples.  Making disciples is more involved than that, it is more relational than that, it is more messy than that.  Jesus spent time with 12 guys, one of which he knew would betray him, and discipled them in everyday life.  He took TIME for RELATIONSHIP.  He listened, he asked questions, he cared for people. 

I noticed this tension several years ago when our church in Ohio began to work with people in poverty.  We spent time a lot of time learning from other ministries in town and observing what they were doing.  I was amazed by all the great things they were doing, but I felt like something was missing.  Under-resourced people were being served, but it didn’t feel like they were being loved.  It didn’t feel like they were being listened to, cared for, talked to, or treated like, well, humans. 

Once we launched an inner city ministry I felt the pressure within myself to give in to the American mass production mindset- How many did we feed this week?  How much stuff did we give away this month?  How can we do more?  Not horrible questions to ask, but I was convicted by more important questions I should have been asking- How did we do at loving people this month?  Did we do a good job of listening to folks and caring for them as fellow humans?     

What if the greatest resource God gave the church was… ourselves?  Not our handouts, not our buildings, not our programs, but US?  What if God doesn’t want us to create more mechanisms to mass produce disciples, but to simply give ourselves, our time, our love to people, one person at a time?  This is what we are going to try to do at the Rock Hill Vineyard.     

-Ben