Outsourcing Christian Responsibilities

Blunt post coming...sometimes I feel like writing a quality piece, and sometimes I just feel like saying something.  This is the latter.

Is it possible to outsource the responsibilities of a Christian?  I'm not sure, but I think we Americans are sure trying.  Let's see if I can situate the scene: we've got a culture that encourages taking the easiest route to things, a church culture that encourages a wide gulf between "professional" Christians and other Christians, and a church culture that rarely teaches the harder parts of discipleship, preferring to allow anyone in.  Every once in a while you find exceptions (the Art of Manliness blog comes to mind for the first, Watermark Church comes to mind for the third where I understand they revoke your membership if you are not involved beyond Sunday morning).  I think most people would agree with these three qualities of our society, so if we connect them, we get...outsourced responsibilities.

Okay this picture isn't really related, I just think
it's funny.  And maybe hitting a bit too close to
home for "incarnational" types.

I believe that it is possible, today in our broader Christian church, to hire missionaries and pastors to do the jobs that the Bible calls all Christians to do.  There are pastors out there making a full-time job out of being part of their neighborhood associations, school PTAs, volunteering to lead community activities, and write blogs.  We call it "incarnational" ministry and extol the value of being part of the community and cultivating what is already there, which is excellent and beautiful.  Except...this isn't a special calling for missionaries and pastors.  These things are the general responsibilities of all Christians.  This isn't a criticism of missionaries who are raising support and making a full-time job out of this.  I hope that their extra free time enables them to take these activities to the next level and develop something strong and sustainable.

No, this is more an observation that we all need to be involved in our communities.  We may not have all the free time to do ten fun things in our community every week, but we can all do one or two.  Ten people involved in two things each every week is better than two people involved in ten each.  If we cannot get involved, maybe we have gotten ourselves too busy for our own (and our community's) good.  Since moving into a new neighborhood this fall I am trying to figure out a variety of ways to get involved and get to know people.  I'm no expert but I know that this is a non-negotiable, and it's not part of my job...it's part of my responsibility as a Christian.  Thank you to the pastors who are leading the way in this...now let's go find one and join them in what they're doing!