Read an Excerpt from "Godspeed"

That is a tragedy. If people are watching their steps around us, how are we ever going to step into their lives?

Too often the church has set itself up in a purely antagonistic stance. "We are known for having an us-versus-them mentality," wrote Kinnaman and Lyons. "Outsiders believe Christians do not like them because of what they do, how they look, or what they believe. They feel minimized—or worse, demonized—by those who love Jesus."

We've taken the prize, the men and women who need Jesus most, and set them up as our enemies. We've let the fight define us instead of love for people.

The final error Christians make in the world is to conform. We become like the unbelieving world, when Jesus called us to be salt and light.

Salt is only useful when it's salty, and light is only meaningful when it's in contrast to the darkness. Jesus was distinct, and His people should be distinct as well. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

While humanity was hostile to Jesus, He went to them. He then sent you and me into the world and asked the Father to protect us from the evil one. When we withdraw from humanity, treat people as the enemy, or conform to the world, we dishonor the teachings of Christ.

DUAL NATURE

Today Christians in America are known as antihomosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical.

That should hit us like a ton of bricks.

Not a single attribute of Christ—loving, compassionate, generous, kind, merciful, humble, caring, or self-sacrificial—makes the list.

The world thinks we're antihomosexual because we're combative. We fought some of the wrong battles on the wrong fronts for the wrong reasons. They think we're judgmental because we cocoon away from them in our little Christian enclaves. They think we're hypocritical because they watch us eventually conform to culture and end up looking like everyone else.

The incarnation of Christ, Jesus in the flesh, must shape the way we live in the world. The reason we're not to cocoon away from people is because Christ came to people. The reason we're not to combat people is because Christ labored to reconcile people, to God and to one another. The reason we're not to conform to this world is

because Christ was otherworldly in His character and holiness.

The incarnation of Christ is the model for mission, the example for the Christian living at Godspeed. When Christ took on humanity, He was fully man and yet fully God. "In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells" Colossians 2:9 says, and yet He took on flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14).

Jesus had a dual nature.

Patterned after Jesus, the church also has a dual nature. In John 17, Jesus said we are not of the world because we've been born again as new creations. Then a few verses later, He sent us into the world as members of humanity. Dual nature.

Peter called the church a royal priesthood that offers up spiritual sacrifices (worship) and a holy nation that proclaims the excellencies of God (witness). This is what John Stott labeled the double identity of the church, or incarnational Christianity.

Incarnational Christianity means that we're called out of the world in worship to God while being sent into the world as witnesses of God. The church is a worshipping and witnessing community, and Christians are worshipping and witnessing people.

LAME BOAT

Jesus was totally committed to humanity without ever ceasing to be holy, which Stott called "total identification without any loss of identity." This concept is important for those of us who are more committed to humanity than we are to holiness.

Think about boats.

I grew up boating off the coast of Santa Barbara and around the Channel Islands and have spent hundreds of hours fishing and surfing from boats. A boat in the water is so much better than a boat in the front yard, in the driveway, or even on the dock.

Here's when a boat is really lame.

A boat is really lame when water gets inside of it. It's the absolute worst. When the boat fills up with water, it becomes useless to the point that it would have been better to leave the boat in the front yard.

My dad and I used to fish for mako sharks from our boat. Mako sharks are crazy and once on deck they can easily thrash either your body or the boat itself. One time I suggested to my dad that we bring along a shotgun, so we could shoot the shark before we pulled it on board and avoid the thrashing that would result. My dad took one look at me, and I instantly knew what he was thinking ... in the heat of the battle with a mako shark there would be as much chance of us blowing a hole in the boat as there would be of blowing a hole in the shark.

Cooler heads prevailed, and we left the gun at home. The thought of the boat filling up with shark-infested water twenty miles out to sea was not a pleasant one.