Despicable Elitism In The Name Of Christ (March 25, 2007)

In my message on Sunday I said how much I hated the strategy of
targeting socially influential people for conversion to Christ. Those
who reason this way say that if you save a popular person, he'll bring
along others too by the strength of his personality. After the sermon
somebody confirmed to me that that is in fact the strategy of a
well-known college parachurch organization.

It is a sinful strategy. Jesus did not work that way, nor did he
instruct his disciples to do so. And didn't St. James tell us that
favoring people of influence is evil?

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "you stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? James 2:1-4

Some years ago at my former church I received a letter from a
Bible-distribution ministry that said, "We are planning to extend our
work through the interest and cooperation of Christian business and
professional men of influence in your area. To this end we want to
invite a few dedicated Christian men from your congregation to a
dinner meeting - business and professional men who have been
spiritually born again (John 3:3)." The letter gave a list of
"acceptable" men who could be invited (like airline captains) and
unacceptable ones (like retail clerks) who would be excluded. I was
asked to provide contact information for the right kind of men - those
who were both Christian and who enjoyed worldly success.

Instead I severed our church's ties with this organization, asked to
be taken off their mailing list and sent them a letter of rebuke. I
wrote: "Our congregation has honorable men who work as welders,
mechanics, machinists and cable installers...The list of business and
professional people you have asked for would exclude individuals like
St. Paul, a tentmaker, St. Peter, a fisherman, and even our Lord, a
carpenter. Your deliberate restriction of invitations to a certain
class of people is alien to the Spirit of Christ. When Jesus went to a
Pharisee's house on a dinner invitation, even a poor sinner could show
up and give her offering. (Luke 7:36-38)."

Yes, I was ticked off, but righteously so. It seemed to me that an
organization so dedicated to distributing Bibles should have done a
better job of reading the Bible and applying its principles.

Look at the qualifications for church leadership in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and you'll see nothing there about how much money a man makes. Look at the people that Jesus and his disciples ministered to, and you will find no regard at all for their social or economic status. In fact, when Jesus selected disciples, he paid no attention to their social or economic status!

The rule for outreach and ministry may be put this way: You qualify to hear the gospel if you are a sinner, and you qualify to lead disciples if you are mature in Christ. Other factors - popularity, influence, money - may matter to the world, but we are not allowed to let them matter to us.