Assimilation - Part 4 "Us vs Them"

In this world (at least my world), we tend to view peoples as either Christian or non-Christian. By doing this are we setting up a "class system?" Ever heard someone say "I can't do that with Joe he is not a Christian." Not only have I heard that I have said it. We Christians have our things that we can only do with other Christians.

Or, if we are going to allow (invite) the non-Christian to attend then we got to make it "seeker sensitive." We change our language that is no Christian jargon. We sugar-coat our questions to them.

A tangible example of this is T-shirts that are worn by Christians as a "witness." We are saying I got it and you don't.

You may have noticed in some of my last posts that I have begun to use "yet-to-be Christian" when referring to non-Christians. Now you might be thinking "Bill, you are just playing with words." And yes I am. But, I think this play on words can help us not view people as either Christian or in another class. We need to intentionally develop a view of people that includes them totally (regardless of any characteristic or trait) as people who need grace and mercy just as we once and still do.

We also need a mindset of going to there "place." We tend to try to attract the yet-to-be Christian to our safe place (church building). Think about this hypothetical possibility. Across the street from your church building every Sunday morning a group of people (age 0 to 99) gather to race remote control cars. It is a remote control car club. Some people from our church begin to recognize that they are there every Sunday morning. The wheels get to turning and ah ha the car club becomes a target group for the church. Plans begin to form. We will reach out to them with a special event geared toward them. (Note: even as I am typing this post, I am using puns that would relate to the car club.) We might do something like this. We identify Jim Blow a Christian who attends our church and owns a hobby shop as a person who would be able to relate to the club. Jim Blow will be our speaker. Let's create a nice brochure that we can put under there windshield wipers on Sunday while they are doing their club thing. On and on we plan. Should work right! Can you identify with doing something like this?

What we need to do is go to there place. What about this approach? It starts the same as we notice the yet-to-be Christians and then decide to target the car club. Rather this time the church commissions a few of it members to join the car club. The church buys the remote control cars for these commissioned people from Jim Blow's hobby shop. They begin to befriend the car club members every Sunday morning. Slowly getting to know them and slowly earning their trust with the intention of sharing Christ with them. Actually all along sharing Christ with them with the intention of one day having them make a decision about Christ.

Referring to a previous post where I identified 5 people groups that we want to assimilate. Can you think of ideas for each of these groups of how we might go to their place?

Does anyone have a suggestion for another word we might use instead of assimilation? My current working definition of assimilation is the process of intentionally bringing, including, integrating people into the life of the local church with the goal of equipping and releasing them to serve and advance the kingdom of God. What would you suggest as a few words to define this process of assimilation? Think of it in these terms rather that Assimilation Ministry, What would you call it?