An insightful quote by Donald Miller worth sharing and reflecting on:

“Sometimes I think it is easier for you and me to believe Jesus is God now that He is in heaven than it might have been back when He was walking around on earth. If you would have seen Jesus do miracles, and if you were one of those who were healed by Him or if you were one of the disciples, then it would have been easier, but for most people, especially the Jews, Jesus would have been a stumbling block.

At the same time, however, we are at a disadvantage because the Jesus that exists in our minds is hardly the real Jesus. The Jesus on CNN, the Jesus in our books and in our movies, the Jesus that is a collection of evangelical personalities, is often a Jesus of the suburbs, a Jesus who wants you to be a better yuppie, a Jesus who is extremely political and supports a specific party, a Jesus who has declared a kind of culture war in the name of our children, a Jesus who worked through the founding fathers to begin America, a Jesus who dresses very well, speaks perfect English, has three points that fulfill any number of promises and wants you and me to be, above all, comfortable.

Is this the real Jesus? Is Jesus sitting in the lifeboat with us, stroking our backs and telling us we are the ones who are right and one day these other infidels are going to pay, that we are the ones who are going to survive and the others are going to be thrown over because we Calvinist, Armenians, Baptist, Methodist, Catholics; because we Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, or liberals; because we attend a big church, a small church, an ethnically diverse church, a house church, or is Jesus acting in our hearts to reach out to the person who isn’t like us….the oppressed, the poor, the unchurched…….and to humble ourselves, give of our money, build communities in love, give our time, our creativity, get on our knees before our enemies in humility, treating them as Scripture says, as people who are more important than we are?

The latter is the Jesus of Scripture; the former, which is infinitely more popular in evangelical culture, is a myth sharing a genre with unicorns.” – From “Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller

“Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, ‘“’Friends, haven’t you any fish?’”’
”No,” they answered.
He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.” (John 21:4-6)

Sometimes I wonder about how we “do church,” especially if we keep doing things “the ways we’ve always done them” and yet keep asking what more we could do to share God’s love with our community around us, while the reality is that most Christian churches are shrinking in congregational size and attendance.

We are tempted to keep trying to do what we did in the past, things that “worked back then,” but we increasingly find less and less success in getting to know these neighbors around us more, not hearing their needs, and not loving them more. They are nearby, on the streets and neighborhoods around our church, but are we reaching them? Maybe we just are casting our nets on the wrong side of the boat.

Where we are placed in the midst of a community all around us, is not the problem. If anything, THAT is our opportunity, our mission field. It might just be that we need to do things differently, shift our focus, “throw our nets on the right side of the boat,” if you will.

Love our neighbors in new ways, seeking new opportunities to connect with them, where they are, sometimes just on the other side of the boat. No extra effort, just doing something different, focusing our energy in a different direction.