Generosity and The Church With IndyMetroChurch’s Aaron Story

Posted by parkejladd on Dec 1, 2009 in Featured {Article} | 8 comments

Parke: There are a lot of us wrestling with what normal Christianity genuinely looks like.  In terms of generosity and the gospel, how should we respond?  What does normal Christianity look like?

Aaron: Well, what does it look like to contextualize the gospel in our environment and not simply try to reproduce what occurred in the early church as found in Acts 2: 42-47?  While there are principles from the early church which apply heavily to the church today, it’s not as if the early church in Acts is inviting us to do exactly as they did.  Occasionally, what we see in portions of the church is idolization of the text itself, worshiping the text and what was done in attempt to reenact the acts of the early church instead of simply responding to the mercy of the gospel in our current environment and letting the fruit of our respons–love, joy, peace–spill out into the world around us.  In terms of generosity, what does this look like to a professional who is making a quarter million dollars a year?  Does he have to sell everything he has, move into the ghetto with 4 of his other wealthy friends, and start telling the homeless poor about Jesus?  Well, no of course not.  Not unless he personally catches that burden.  On the other hand we have couples who are dedicated to doing just what I described, to serving the poorest of the poor right here on Indy’s East side.  Two different groups of people, wrestling with the gospel, attempting to honor the gospel, and yet it looks totally different.  Neither is more holy than the other.  The two mission fields or communities are completely different, but neither one is in more need of the gospel or Jesus’ love than the other.  The Lord’s heart breaks for all people that are separated from him.  Those living and working in one community don’t have the opportunity to impact those living in the other.  That’s just the reality of their situations.

Parke: Jesus spent a lot of time with the poor.  Why not imitate him in that way?

Aaron: Jesus spent a ton of time with the poor, as should we.  However, Jesus cared for and deeply loved all people regardless of their economic situation.  We, unlike Jesus, end up making an idol out of serving the poor.  In America, the upper-lower class is considered very rich based on the global economic scale.  The danger is that we fall into a trap that says, “Well, Jesus spent all of his time with the poor so we should dedicate all of our time, money and resources to them as well.”  When the reality is that Jesus cared for and deeply loved all people regardless of their economic situation.  Does the Lord not want to see all people come to Him?  On the other hand, does this mean that the rich don’t have an obligation to give or be generous with what they’ve been given?  Of course not, but the rich persons primary influence is in a different realm based on where he has been planted as compared to the poor.  The rich and broke person’s conviction should be:  What am I doing to bring the love of the gospel to the people whom I am currently surrounded by.  Not should I leave the people I’m currently surrounded by and go be a part of another group simply because they are poor (or rich).  Use your influence for the gospel where you are.

Parke: Essentially what you’re saying is that each person’s response to the gospel is unique in accordance to their walk with Christ.  While it will be fundamentally founded upon the same truths and passions, the response will look different in accordance to what the Lord is calling them to and who the Lord places them amongst.

Aaron: Right, the response will look different and it should look different.

Parke: So what do we do with all of our stuff?  We’ve been given so much while so many others have so little.

Aaron: Well, regardless of how much stuff you have, at the end of the day, it’s all God’s anyway.  It’s not yours.  If the Lord convicts you to give it away, you’d better give it away.  You should serve your neighbors no matter who they are or how the Lord calls you to do so.  Be generous with all of your possessions, not just a percentage.  Whether you have a calling on your life to live amongst the poor of Indy or you have been put in a position of extreme wealth, you should serve, love and reach out to your neighbors with the gospel no matter what.

Parke: What’s up with church media and this whole movement toward relevancy?  Where are church leaders going with this and why?

Aaron: The gospel is the most relevant thing we have.  It is relevant to all people.  Everyone, in some form or another, has sin in their life.  We are all imperfect.  However, every sin looks a little different.  Some sins look culturally acceptable: gluttony, over shopping, over eating, over working.  On the other hand, the person selling crack or prostituting on the corner gets labeled as the terrible sinner.  So while these sins are different, they still equally equate to idolatry or anything that takes the place of the Lord at the center of our life.  Whether you get culturally condemned for your sin or not is not of importance.  What’s important is that it is sin, regardless of what society says, and therefore we are all in need of the gospel.  Thus, it is the most relevant thing we know.  It applies to all people because all people are imperfect and in need of Jesus.

Parke: In light of that relevancy, Indy Metro Church states that it is a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, socioeconomically diverse, church.  If so, how do you relate to so many different types of people with unique backgrounds and cultures coming from all sorts of different angles here in downtown Indianapolis?

Aaron: We can’t all be the same.  We are simply too diverse.  This isn’t the suburbs!  The message of sameness doesn’t apply to the church.  The people of Indy Metro Church aren’t all going through the same struggles or joys, and most of them are in completely different stages of life all together.  In fact, it’s difficult because the experience of the person sitting directly next to you is probably very different compared to yours.

Parke: Can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?

Aaron: Let’s talk about money.  How do I talk about money when at least 20% of our church is marginalized, living in poverty, while another 20% is living in great financial comfort, monetarily stable and well off.  The other 60% are all scattered somewhere in between.  Or how about generosity?  Are the poor not called to lives of generosity as well as the rich?  Of course they are, but it looks different to both groups of people.  Generosity looks different dependent upon the individual’s personal circumstances, but it is still generosity none the less.  Whether you live richly or poorly on this earth, generosity cannot be ignored.  A mark of someone pursuing the gospel–loving Jesus and loving others–is a generous lifestyle.  One characteristic of normal Christianity is generosity.

Parke: What I’ve come to realize is that the reason I don’t know to what extent the Lord is calling me to be generous is that I don’t spend enough time with Jesus, actively and intimately pursuing his will for my life.  The personal relationship is in dire need of attention in my opinion.  Would you agree?

Aaron: Yeah, that’s fair.  In all things.  Even last night I was to the point of just deleting every “Christian culture” feed in my Twitter account and other contacts I have elsewhere.  I’m not talking about real friends or church leaders; I’m talking about all of these other helpful yet time consuming ministry tools and resources.  I’m deleting them because they’re just so crappy.  Mediocre.  There is so much duplication out there that is just rehashed information repackaged and labeled as creative which is very effective at stymieing my own God-given creativity.  I can pull from so many different sources.  I wonder how many times the Lord would say, “Aaron, stop watching and listening to that crap and just come fall on your face before me and spend some time with me!  Pray. Read. I will give you what you need to sustain this church and this movement.  I will provide.  Simply come to me.”  I’m not dogging people at all, but I have so much influence from so many mediocre influences in my life that I settle for scraps from the table instead of taking the keys to the Kingdom.  You know what I mean?  All the stuff may be good stuff, but I confess that it is so easy to let other “good” resources take away from my personal time with the Lord, engaging him in a heart to heart manner which cannot be replicated through spending time with anyone else or reading any other thing or following any other feed.  What is God saying to me?  How can I know without spending time with him, every day, on my knees, passionately pursuing his path for my life?  While God can speak through special conferences or powerful books, there is a difference between doing those things and making those things an idol where they take the place of God at the center of my life.  In a sense they become my source for God instead of going to God himself.

Parke: Sin of omission, right?

Aaron: Yeah, sin of omission.  Not doing what we are supposed to do.  It’s not simply that I am going out and blatantly doing something wrong, it’s that I am not doing something which I know I should do.  Not spending time with the Lord would be a sin of omission, correct.

Parke: There are so many other sources to run to.  So many other books, blogs and people to listen too, have we forgotten our first love?

Aaron: I love what a lot of authors are doing.  It was never their intention for me to idolize them.  It’s our issue.  They put out good stuff, and I put it on too high of a platform and allow it to take the place of personal time with Jesus.  It’s the challenge of not replacing Christ with culturally acceptable idols, no matter how useful or good they may be.

Parke: IndyMetroChurch has been around for 3 years now.  What’s been the response to what some might call just another church in downtown Indianapolis?  What’s changed?  Has there been an impact?

Aaron: It’s evolving.  3 years is a long time, and we are so different today than we were 3 years ago.  If you choose to join us at IMC, you’ve got to be prepared to grow and move and learn quickly.  The pace of learning here is substantial.  We are constantly morphing our approach as to how we go about reaching people and most effectively loving them.  We have learned so much the past few years, and we don’t even know what to do with all the info.  People looking in from the outside may not see much, but the Lord is doing some inspiring things here in Indy.  When I look around and see the people from all sorts of unique backgrounds, it just stirs my soul.  I look around and we have single men and women from marginalized backgrounds, living in poverty, yet still worshiping and grateful for every breath they have.  We have urban professionals meeting with and sharing life with impoverished, young couples and homeless men and women walking off the street for a coffee and a bite to eat.  We have newly married couples and couples who have been married for 40 years.  We have college students, high school students, and babies who don’t even know what a student is.  All these different backgrounds, coming together as one, crying out praises to the Lord, coming to know who he is…just hits me in a way that I cannot describe.  It’s his church.  He is at work here in Indy, and it has nothing to do with our own personal effort.  We couldn’t have done this as leaders on our own.  We talked about it, but the Lord is doing it. I Corinthians. 3. We planted, and God is making it grow!  The lives that are being changed are all so different.  There are new folks from all sorts of different environments joining the church every week.

Parke: How do you measure success?

Aaron: There are some tangible steps, but we don’t measure success based on the regular ones such as: How many baptisms, how many people walk through our doors on Sunday, how many new people come to an event.  No, it’s about journeying with people as they take steps toward developing their relationship with the Lord.  We want to teach the scriptures and allow people the opportunity to reach out to us as they attempt to figure out this Jesus guy and what it really means to be a Christian.  God is bringing us people to serve and love and that’s what we are committed to doing.

Parke: A lot of people think the church is fake.  Whether they got the impression that church was all about taking care of its own, no outsiders allowed, or that it was all about dressing up and going to a fancy building where more money was spent on sanctuaries than helping the poor, they grew up with the picture of the church being something that it apparently was never meant to be.  How would you address this?

Aaron: If we would have bought or built a building we never would have been able to do some of the things we are planning on doing currently.  We would have been locked into a situation where we would have to be attempting to draw as many people to a central gathering as possible.  Our conviction isn’t to draw people to a central space as often as possible or once a week on Sunday morning.  Buildings affect what kind of church we can be.  They affect our DNA as a church.  Our philosophy as property owners would have been completely different than it is now without.  Our philosophy is to reach the entire city of Indianapolis.  We want to be able to reach out to everyone and anyone without the constrictions that come, many times, with the burden of a building and all the costs associated with it.  It’s very difficult to change when you have a building, when you are settled.  Let’s face it.  It’s not really about the building.  It’s about the philosophy behind the building.  If the building or programs become idols for the church than your philosophy will be drastically altered away from what the Lord originally intended.  Can space be used to love and effectively reach people?  Of course!  There is value in having space.  If space allows us to serve more people, than we should have space.  Should we own it?  Philosophically I have my doubts, but as long as we are attempting to build and do everything to reach people, we are headed in the right direction.

Parke: When it comes to authentic Christianity, the Lord doesn’t ask for half of anything.  He asks us to seek him with all of our heart, to serve him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Is following Jesus an all or nothing thing?

Aaron: Are we far from what normal Christianity originally looked like?  Probably.  I mean, it’s not hard to see the example of the early Christian church and then ponder what happened along the way. If Jesus came back today and saw us for who we are he might not be thrilled, but he is so gracious!  Right relationship with the Lord is the goal.  Regardless of what you have–abilities, gifts, talents, jobs, voice–use it for Jesus.  Don’t get consumed with legalism or guilt.  Your wealth, what you’ve been given, the voice that you have, they’re all tools for the Lord.  The goal is to remove anything that comes between you and God, and that is accomplished through not idolizing anything.  Listen to the calling the Lord has for you.  Follow him where he leads.  One person’s “all” is going to look different from another persons “all”, but at the center they are both going to be in complete pursuit of God, with no hindrances from things, regardless of how many they may own.  We create idols.  Whether you have a lot or you have nothing, things can still be an idol.  Regardless of how much stuff you have, the same struggles exist, and the same cure exists, and that is the gospel.  Authentic Christianity is all or nothing.   Meditate on the gospel, respond wholly to it, and go where he leads you.  Nothing we gain is for ourselves.  It is all for the Lord.  We simply transfer through what the Lord gives us to whom he leads us to give it to when he leads us to give it!  If there is anything that gets between us and the Lord, we’ve got to let it go.  However, letting things go and serving the poor is not the goal.  Right relationship with the Lord is.  Out of our pursuit of right relationship with the Lord will our giving and letting go be properly and adequately defined and accomplished.

You can follow Aaron here: @aaronstory or through IndyMetro.org