Continuing on with observations and ruminations from the Acts-29 Boot Camp, I’ve been camping on the concept of what makes church attractive to the masses. We’ve done it all at my church, tried everything to keep people interested in coming and relating to the church in their everyday lives. Some ideas have worked, some haven’t. The common thread is that we are constantly looking for the “next idea” – the next big thing that will keep people interested in the things of God. What if the “next big thing” is just preaching a big Jesus?

Of course, I’m not talking about the long-haired, hippie, androgynous Jesus that is popular with the worldly crowd these days. I’m talking about a Big Jesus, the Jesus who made John fall “as though dead” when confronted with the vision of the glorified Christ. As Mark Driscoll put it, “the Church needs a big Jesus.” When asked how he grew his church, Mars Hill in Seattle, WA, he replied simply, “we started talking about Jesus until people started showing up.”

Sound simplistic? Perhaps it is just the breath of fresh air that the Church needs today. Instead of appealing to people’s consumer tendencies and giving them the latest “fix,” maybe we just proclaim the risen Christ, and let Him fix them.

I stayed home from church on Sunday with my daughter, who was sick with a slight cold and fever. I set up a Sunday School lesson for her to do at home complete with a craft project (she’s 4-1/2). I chose more-or-less at random from stories in her children’s Bible, and decided upon the scene from Mark 2:1-12:

    (1)A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. (2)So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. (3)Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. (4)Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. (5)When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
    (6)Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, (7)”Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
    (8)Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? (9)Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? (10)But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .” He said to the paralytic, (11)”I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” (12)He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

I think this illustrates the “Big Jesus” idea of church growth. The men carried their friend and did what they had to do to get in to the house where Jesus was – because they had faith that Jesus would heal their friend. I think an un-churched person needs a fair amount of faith before they can enter a church building these days. How do they get it? They hear that great things happen inside the Church. They hear that genuine things happen – that huge things beyond human power and understanding happen inside the Church. They hear that there is hope for their lives, because there is a God who is bigger than they are in whom to put their trust.

We worry about making sure our churches are comfortable to visitors. We make sure we have ample parking, inviting decor, clean bathrooms, comfortable chairs, well-maintained air conditioning – everything we can think of to not drive them away due to any discomfort or inconvenience. But what are we doing to attract them to our Jesus? Do you think for a minute that if we had a big Jesus in our church, that people would stop coming because it was hard to find a parking space?

Come, Thou long-expected big Jesus.