Reconciliation
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
“We can no longer see ourselves as chaplains of a society. We are now missionaries in this culture.”
-Jeff Roper
I graduated from the University of Sioux Falls with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in drawing and sculpture. Which means for the next 8 years I worked in retail. At the end of every shift we would do something called “reconciling the till”. The cash register would print out a receipt telling us how much cash we’d received. We’d count every bill and coin, taking note of any shortage or overage and put that into a bag for the bank. What was left in the cash drawer was the amount we started with every morning. It was never less and never more than we originally intended…it was always the right amount. The mistakes of the day before were wiped out.
And this was what Jesus did for us on the cross. He looked at our messiness, mistakes and inability to achieve perfection and wiped it all away. He set our nature back to the way God had originally intended…new, untouched and without blemish. It is the same nature Adam and Eve had before the fall. Interestingly enough, that isn’t all He did. He didn’t just die on a cross for our sins. He didn’t just rise from the dead to defeat death. He sent an advocate, the Holy Spirit, to dwell within us so we can do as He did.
He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
My wife and I are about to embark on one of the weirdest, scariest, bumpiest, faith and hope filled journeys with Jesus to date. Our next season involves selling our house, moving to Snohomish, WA and opening Center Public House: Washington State’s first nonprofit pub. As we look across the landscape of the Pacific Northwest we see that, to many people, church has passed being irrelevant and is quickly becoming the issue. Their view of the Church is not one of reconciliation but rather one of agitation. We see a large exodus from the standard contemporary church model. That’s not to say the contemporary model is wrong it’s saying there are droves of people falling through the cracks and never having the opportunity for reconciliation.
Initially we believed we were planting a church but the more we prayed about it the more we realized we were planting something much different. Many people go to bars for the very same reason many people go to church; to lament, to celebrate and to build community. A large number of these people (people created by our God to be loved and cherished) will never walk through the doors of a church. Most have never had a deep relationship with a Christ follower and only know what Christians believe by hearing sound bites on the news. They have no idea what real followers of Christ believe. They don’t know that we believe that God does not give us a spirit of fear but one of Power, Love and Self Control. They have no idea that the real evidence of a Christ follower is not our bumper stickers or the way we vote but by our Fruit and that Fruit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness and Self Control. They’ve never heard the Good News, only the bad news.
So we are raising funds right now to open this vision from God. Not only will we be able to speak reconciliation into people who will never darken the doorstep of a church right from behind the bar, we’ll also be bringing reconciliation to other nonprofits by giving away any profits to a series of local to international nonprofits. In addition to all of that, we’ll be setting up a fund to specifically bring reconciliation to the restaurant industry in our city. We have audacious goals. Some people will even call it ridiculous. Even others might say it’s dangerous. But we serve an audacious and ridiculous God who is rarely concerned with being “safe”. He’s called us to “go!” He’s called us to set the captives free. That looks different from person to person but one thing is for sure, we can no longer do that from the church pew. We must be a Church who take the ministry of reconciliation to the people. Sometimes that means feeding the homeless and other times that means having a pint.
Scott Wetzel
Check out more info the Wetzel’s non-profit pub plans at:
http://mynorthwest.com/874/2915347/Snohomish-could-be-getting-nonprofit-pub-that-plans-to-donate-all-profits-to-charity
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