This morning, I was playing with my kids, when a familiar game arose. I call it, “It’s a Tiger!” (Inspired, no doubt by one of their favorite books of the same name). It’s a borderline chaotic game interwoven with youthful imagination that challenges animal-human social dynamic.
That is…is a game where my kids pretend that a tiger is outside.
A bit of background…I have a 3 year old girl (Arianna), and a 2 year old son (Miles). They are polar opposites in their personalities, but play fairly well together (as well as brothers and sisters do, I guess) and this is their favorite game (for now). At some point during the day, one of them will walk up to anyone (typically my wife or me, but it can often be whoever is closest to them), and they will say something like “We’ve gotta hide! It’s a tiger! He’s over there and he’s opening the door!” The animal always changes (it’s often a gorilla or a bear, too), and the reaction to the animal always changes. Sometimes we run and hide, sometimes we offer them coffee or tea. Sometimes there’s a bunch of animals, sometimes there’s only one.
You get the point…remember…I said chaos, right?
What struck me was that they always want to invite people in to their imaginative play. It’s never exclusive, and it seems that whoever gets invited in, they always wants to engage in this ridiculous game. It got me thinking a lot about faith. Often, in the church we get frustrated that our friends and acquaintances don’t accept our invitations to a worship service, Bible Study, or event at our churches. In the church, we analyze this interaction to death, and our results are typically the same two things: 1) Change how we do things to adapt to culture or 2) Change the people to think/talk/act like us so that they can understand Jesus (i.e. Colonial Missiology). This is often a false dichotomy that paralyzes our ability to share the good news. The problem isn’t how we do things, or how “they” do things (those are secondary or even tertiary issues for the church). The solutions are not found in style or even in the material. The solution is found in one thing…joy. When I play “It’s a Tiger!” with my kids, I enter in on their turf, with a language I don’t understand, and rules that I’m not convinced anyone has laid out, and I do all of it willingly because I see the joy they are experiencing and I want to be a part of it. They invite in a way that makes their joy hopefully contagious, and who doesn’t want real joy, right? Maybe people refuse our invitations because our joy doesn’t appear to be contagious…or maybe it just doesn’t come off as joy at all.
I don’t have any fancy formulaic solutions for the church, but I do have a few questions that I feel we all must wrestle with, namely this one, “Do my friends/family see my joy in Christ in a way that they want to be a part of it?” If “No”, the solution, I’m convinced, will not be found in style. The solution will be found in the truth of the gospel which may challenge our own faith in ways that maybe we’re not comfortable with. This is a challenge we must all face.
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” John 15:11
Is your joy full or are you still lacking? Jesus doesn’t offer us “half joy”…it’s always complete…it’s all that we need. He has forgiven your sins. You are now reconciled with God. You are given perfect freedom, perfect love, perfect peace, and perfect joy. Maybe you don’t fully understand what it all means. That’s okay. God leaves room for mystery. Just don’t forget that all of that is yours…for free…no hidden charges. My encouragement for all of us is to live in that joy and invite others into it so that they can discover the sheer joy of salvation.
todd niebling 