The mission of our church is meeting people where they are and helping them take their next step towards a Christ-centered life.
In our readings both for yesterday and today, we see Paul and his companions doing exactly this. Yesterday, we read how Paul used the Scriptures to reach the people of Beroea who already had a deep love and respect for the Scriptures.
Today, we see Paul meeting the non-Jewish people of Athens where they are by talking to them in the Areopagus and using things they were already familiar with to introduce them to the good news of Christ.
Paul does not condemn their worship of idols and false gods. Instead, he uses the altar of an unknown God as a bridge to help them understand the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He meets them where they are and helps them take their next step to a Christ-centered life.
One of the things that makes ministry so challenging today is that the context we are in is more like Athens than Beroea.
While fifty years ago an overwhelming majority of people had both deep respect for and a broad understanding of the Scriptures, today that is simply not the case.
The reality is that on any given Sunday over 75% of the population of East Baton Rouge Parish does
not
attend worship.
A recent survey estimates that over 40% of the population is at least two generations removed from active engagement in
any
community of faith. In the city of Baton Rouge, children under the age of 10 are the largest unchurched population.
Rather than despair over these facts, Christ wants us to follow the example of Paul. This means living out our mission by meeting people where they are knowing that Christ has already gone before us, and the Spirit will equip us for our task.
