I was reading Luke this morning, and when I got to chapter 3, something occurred to me that I had not thought of before. John the Baptist's main purpose in life, it seems to me, was to set the stage for people to meet God. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Fill in the valleys, flatten the mountains, straighten crooked paths, and level the rough places so that people can see God.

It seems like such a great way to live, going about life doing whatever you can do to make it easier for people to see God. But as I thought about it, I was challenged. Is that what I try to do? Make it easy for people to see God? 

I’ve always had a fascination with Russia. As a child, I remember sitting and watching the hockey game in the 1980 Winter Olympic games, USA versus the USSR. The Soviet players appeared so serious and void of emotion. “Why do they look so mean?” I asked my father.

He explained the Cold War to me in age appropriate terms. An “us and them” mentality began to grow in my young mind until my dad said something that broke this chain of thought. “You have to realize it’s not the people we are against, it’s their government. It is a group of people forcing evil ways on their country. We must pray for the people in the USSR, for God to help them.”

Fourteen years later I found myself preparing to live in part of the former Soviet Union. I was headed to southern Russia as a missionary. The Iron Curtain had fallen a few years prior. The world had experienced crazy change practically overnight. I couldn’t believe it - had God heard the prayers of my father and thousands and millions of others?

Many Christians don’t understand why this approach often backfires – sometimes spectacularly, as if the evangelist had just stepped on a verbal landmine, sometimes quietly, as if a glacial chill had settled on the room. Why doesn’t this approach work better? Why don’t people open up and take the opportunity to talk about the Gospel?

I’ve been there, on that side of the conversation. It’s hard to explain straight-up, so let me tell you a story.

A while back I wrote a blog post on the often cited quote, “Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words,” which is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

The blog addressed a difficult and challenging relationship of Christian proclamation aka word vs demonstration aka deed.

One inquisitive reader raised the following questions:

1) Jesus seems to prioritize his teaching ministry over his “deed” ministry at various points (e.g. Mark 1:35-39, 3:7-19, 4:1-2 and the parallels in the other synoptic gospels).

2) Jesus seems to describe the ‘self-sacrificial’ life of following him to ‘adhering to his words,’ and doing so is for his sake (which is equated to the gospel’s sake) in Mark 8:31-38.

You've no doubt heard about the parable of the seed and the sower?  It's one of those stories I've seen illustrated with little shreds of flannel when I was in 2nd grade, heard it taught at camp by a guy who illustrated it in what was called a "chalk talk" and studied it in seminary.

In spite of all this, it was only today that I was really struck by the fact this guy wasn't very careful about where he put his seeds.  Rocky soil, good soil, the side of the road, amidst weeds... come on farmer man, take aim!  In spite of his seeming to sow seeds like a blind man, Jesus' interpretation of the parable says nothing about being more careful, no, "so folks, let's learn from this silly wasteful farmer about the importance of only planting seeds where we know they will be fruitful."  To the contrary, when Jesus says that "the seed is the word of God", He's saying:  "this is the way it is - the seed will be scattered everywhere - EVERYWHERE!"

This is just becoming all too familiar. The first reports, the death toll climbing every half-hour or so, the news of those who survived, grieving for those who did not. I first learned about the earthquake today in Chile from Twitter - from Alyssa Milano on Twitter, in fact, retweeting photo images from the New York Times. I jumped on Facebook and learned that several friends of mine have relatives in Chile; thankfully, all reports are good news so far.

As I continued combing through news reports, I discovered that there was also an earthquake in Japan this morning. Then I heard further news - the warning of an impending tsunami. I have just been looking at the images on the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center web site, and I see nations and cities along the Pacific coast that are now at risk: Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga and many other place.

What do you think? Can the church be both attractive and missional? What would this look like? Or should church be only attractive or only missional? How do churches continually mobilize their congregants to be missional, taking church outside the church walls and into their communities?