Knock, knock …

If you want quality craftsmanship, look up the guys who made doors in ancient Italy and you’ll find some fellows who knew how to make something that would last for centuries.

I took the photo above while walking through ancient ruins in Rome, and the photo to the right is the doorway of a very old Roman church. During my visit to both Rome and Venice, I saw several centuries-old buildings that had fallen into ruin, except the doors on many of these buildings remained in tact and were still intimidating barriers to those who might intend mischief.

While new materials had to be introduced to restore some of these sites, some of the original doors were left standing.

These stubborn old doors remind me of the church, which has had a long-held belief that the primary entry for non-Christians to gain access to the Gospel was the Sunday morning church service. It’s an old door that still stands for many local churches.

The problem is, that isn’t the door God intended to be the primary portal to the Gospel. So what is the door?

You. The Christian. You’re a key door God has crafted as an opening to His message of reconciliation.

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

The great failure of the church today is it’s chosen strategy of waiting on non-Christians to walk through the door of the local church building in search of the Gospel.

That wasn’t God’s strategy.

Instead, Jesus told us to go into the world and make disciples. God has given to us the “message of reconciliation” along with an appointment to be ambassadors for Christ — official representatives of the King sent out to deliver his terms for peace.

God’s strategy is brilliant: wherever there is a follower of Christ, there is a portal to the Gospel for the unbelievers in their lives. In that case, it is vital that we beckon those around us to come in! It is vital that we be inviting open doors to a lost world.

As ambassadors for Christ,  we need to put out the “welcome mat” in front of our lives and be that doorway to the Gospel. Otherwise, if we continue to wait for people to walk through the doors of church buildings, many will perish without being reconciled to God.

Scotty