Drive-thru Missions: God Calls Us to More than a Quick Fix
We Americans love a good drive-thru. We drive-thru to pick up meals, order the dry-cleaning, do our banking business, and complete all sorts of errands. For us, it is all about convenience. We want what we want, and we want it now. Because of our lifestyle, we have begun to make the same fast demands of God. Audaciously we ask God to respond quickly to our prayers and with a response that we want to hear. We forgot somewhere along the way that God’s motto is not “Have it Your Way.” As Christians, we believe that each person is called to spread the word of God through service and outreach locally and across the world. Unfortunately, Americans have inserted the drive-thru culture into the Christian theology of missions. We have drop-off bins for canned goods, clothes, shoes, and nearly any other used item we don’t want any longer. We can easily drop off a bag of non-perishables at the local food bank. Even worse, the local church may provide you with a bag to fill at home and to return to the church, both locations are incredibly comfortable. The similarity in all of these things is that each of them can be done quickly. It takes no time, no effort, and no contact with the person or community in need. How can we compare these examples to God’s word? In Isaiah 58:10 we read, “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” For me, the key words here are “spend yourselves,” and sadly, we do not know what that looks like. Notice that the verse does not read “spend your money in behalf of the hungry,” nor does it read “quickly feed the hungry and drop off some clothes to satisfy the needs of your own conscience.” God is calling us to more than a quick fix. He even makes promises to those who truly spend themselves. “Your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” To truly spend ourselves, we must first understand what that means and what it looks like in our daily lives. It means to take time to be in relation with persons and communities who are hungry and oppressed. It means working towards right relationship with God, self, and others, both the one spending himself and one being satisfied. What comes of all of this is an up close and personal look at all of the things that make us uncomfortable. We do not want to get close to the poor. We do not want to spend our time and energy to bring those who hungry or oppressed out of a dark place. Instead, we want to use our drive-thru mentality to put a Band-Aid on the problem. I am thankful for a God who calls us to more than that, who calls us to be uncomfortable, and who demands that we “spend ourselves” on the least of these. I am thankful for a God who is also my accountability partner, to ensure that I make decisions on a daily basis that will positively affect the poor in my community and across the world.
Prayer:
Our Lord, we pray that you teach us daily to learn what it means to spend
ourselves for the poor. Help us to make decisions that will break the cycle of
oppression in our communities and ministries. We ask that you guide us in
analyzing the ministries that we hold dear to know if we have applied a
drive-thru mission’s service or if we have truly invested ourselves in the
betterment of the people. Thank you for being patient with us as we try to do your
will. Give us strength to stand back up after we fall. In the Holy and Most
Precious Name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
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