There is a spiritual darkness, a spiritual hunger, growing in our culture today and our religious institutions seem unable to address it. The reasons for this are various and only partly known, but we clearly need a new effort to go into the darkness and declare the light.
Unfortunately, it often seems that our religious organizations are even holding us back. The effort needed to keep organizations running smoothly keeps leaders focused inward, which is natural. The leaders, in turn, keep the lay believers focused inward. Unfortunately, this all works in opposition to the “go” mindset. Even when churches reach out, they do so from an organizational perspective.
For example, a lot of outreach consists of inviting people into church. Such invitations may be to religious services or largely secular activities designed to be welcoming and attractive to non-Christians. This is not the same as sending people from church into the darkness, however. Consider that the ways spiritual truths are shared almost always use Christian terminology and often even Scripture, which is not the way people share ideas in the darkness.
As we’ve seen elsewhere, there is a need to reach those who are spiritually furthest from church. They probably will not respond to invitations, have little interest in learning about Christianity (the religion), and so on. They may well need to be brought into a relationship with God before finding a church, and the best church for them may not be the one associated with whoever led them to God.
Thus, those furthest from God (at the spiritual ends of the Earth) are not good targets for typical organizational outreach efforts. In addition, leaders are so focused on the organizations that they seem not to recognize the need to send their people out. Rather than encourage individual seeking, they encourage passive listening to in-church teachings that continue to focus internally.
In a sense, I think something similar is pictured in Acts. When the persecution started after Stephen’s death, the apostles stayed in Jerusalem while the other believers scattered, preaching the word as they went. In other words, in the face of persecution, they redoubled their efforts to spread the gospel (Acts 8:1-4).
This continued until these believers reached areas that were far from Judea, both physically and spiritually. The final breakthrough to people completely separate from God occurred in Antioch, through the ministry of these unknown believers (Acts 11:19).
So, the picture seems to be of the leaders focusing on keeping the church healthy, while the lay believers focus on witnessing of Jesus.
Some of the things I’ve read about the early church also seem to echo this. Writings of the church fathers seem often to do with organizational matters, doctrine, liturgy, and so on. Things that are (rightly and necessarily) focused on keeping the church healthy, but not necessarily growing the kingdom.
On the other hand, one of the earliest clear apologetic writings is by an unknown author (The Letter to Diognetus), apparently a lay believer who simply felt the need to share the gospel clearly with someone who needed to hear it.
To be sure, there are numerous stories of the apostles spreading the gospel in different regions, but these extra-Biblical accounts seem to be exceptions, rather than the rule.
Whether these observations of the early church are correct or not, it does seem that the reality today is that current organizations, and the people who lead them, are not interested in reaching far into the darkness. This leaves an opportunity for lay believers to make that journey, just as happened in Acts.
Exploring Antioch 