Going Public

As a 90’s kid in a fairly sheltered Christian home, my favourite band growing up was Newsboys. (If you’re unaware of 90’s Christian culture and want a crash course on the best Christian band of the decade, here are some songs to check out: Shine, Take Me To Your Leader, Breakfast, Entertaining Angels, and Love Liberty Disco.) Something that stands out to me about their music even 30 years later is how bold it was. Their songs were non-compromising. They stated Christian faith confidently and encouraged other believers to “go public.” Going Public was even the name of one of their albums, as well as a hit song on that album. Here’s the hook from that song:

Sign on, the time is drawing near
This is surely a banner year
To be a public witness

Sign on, the lines are drawn and clear
There's no straddling fences here
We're going public with this

I’ve been thinking about this idea of “going public” recently. It’s something we’ve been alluding to here at The Bridge and something we’ve been trying to embody. Our last sermon series was about promoting the gospel and a lot of the sermons pointed to being set apart, but doing that visibly in the presence of the world. As 1 Peter 2:12 says, we are to live such good lives “among the pagans.” In Matthew 5:16, Jesus tells us to let our light shine before others. In John 17:14-16, Jesus’ message has often been summed up as advocating being in the world but not of the world. If we want to promote the gospel, we need to be different from the world, but we can’t be hidden away in our little cloisters. We need to go public.

We did that on Sunday afternoon at Cates Park. About 100 people from The Bridge congregated on the beach, sang in joyful worship to God, prayed together, and loudly celebrated the baptisms of five people in the frigid waters. We were very public, very visible, very joyful. Not everyone who saw this was a fan. Apparently we got some very strange looks, maybe even a middle finger tossed our way. We also received some genuine questions. One person approached one of our leaders and asked if this “was like a Muslim thing?” Now, I don’t know what the fruit of this will be, but I know that people witnessed a group of diverse people united by their love for the Lord, filled with His joy.

We did it on Monday afternoon in Myrtle Park. Because of our kids day camp, which consumes every square foot of this building this week, our Noon Prayer took place on the field at Myrtle. We were a smaller group, maybe 5-10 people, but it must have looked strange to those who walked by (apparently we did get some strange looks here too). We were a group of diverse people, sitting on the grass with reverence, eyes mostly closed, praying to God. That’s not something you expect to see in the middle of the park! By the way, I don’t believe this goes against Matthew 6:5-6 because our motivation was not to exalt ourselves with our impressive prayers. We were simply doing what Christians do, gathering at the feet of our Father, but doing it in public.

Going public is what we’ll do later this summer on August 8 at our SummerFest. Each year, we host a summer neighbourhood event with some live music, games, and BBQ. Each year, we receive a ton of visitors from our neighbourhood who meet people from The Bridge and experience our hospitality. They are invited to join us on a Sunday, and some of them do. We’re going public, hosting an event out in the open so that people will be drawn to the Lord.

I also think about this because as many of you know, I come from a Mennonite background ethnically. The Mennonites have always been a very distinctive people, unafraid of going against the grain of wider culture. That’s a heritage I love and think is worth emulating. The early Mennonites were also zealous about sharing the good news with others, which was a potent mix. They grew quickly because of their bold, countercultural witness. However, a time came a generation or two later that they tired of persecution. A compromise was made. Mennonites began isolating themselves in colonies, separated from the world. They were still distinctive, but they weren’t present in the world, which meant that the light was hid under the proverbial bowl (Matthew 5:15). The evangelistic growth of an earlier generation was entirely shut down.

So let us be God’s people, living against the grain, but let us be God’s people in public. Let us be joyful, baptizing and worshiping and serving together in His name, in the presence of a watching world. We’ll face much more opposition and hostility than if we just keep to ourselves, but we’ll also see far more fruit. This is surely a banner year to be a public witness.

- Craig