Context and Voice | introduction

In a perfect world the front door to your house is inviting and easy to navigate to. When someone pulls up to your house, the journey from their car to the inside of your house via the front door is smooth and easy not long and complicated.

There’s a number on your house near the front door that let’s people easily identify it from a distance (the street). When they arrive at the front door there is a button to push that lets you know that they have arrived so that you can meet them at the door to let them in. Maybe you have a knocker?

You might have a door mat out there with an inviting phrase like; ‘Welcome’. My wife likes to make sure the best looking flowers in the garden are the ones nearest the front door.

At various holidays you might hang certain things on the door to show solidarity with other people that celebrate that holiday.

Immediately inside the front door you may have some decor that gives people an impression about who lives there. At my house there’s a lighted niche with vintage skateboards in it.

The back door; or if you’re my family…the garage door, for you it might be the side door or whatever. Let’s call it the back door for the sake of this discussion.

The back door is where you go into your house. It’s where your family goes into the house. The back door is where you kick your shoes into the shoe pile. Old mail and newspapers might be stacked up. There’s a dog door. The litter box is here. There’s no doorbell for visitors to announce their presence. No welcome mat (or maybe the old one that used to be at the front door). No flowers.

It’s not inviting nor is it meant to be. It’s for you and those closest to you. You can let your guard down here.

Right inside our back door is the washer and dryer. No decor to frame people’s thoughts about who we are, just soap and dirty laundry.

I think the Church is confused about where the front door is and where the back door is and worse yet, who uses them and how they should be presented.

We have let the front door be designed and shaped by those not even in the Church. The front door has lost it’s roll as the main entry point and has been replaced by forcing people outside ‘our family’ to jump through hoops to get in the back door.

We have let family members decorate the door with messages that should be reserved for the back door…or inside the home itself.

We need to take a step back and take a fresh look at how we move people on the journey from stranger to family. From irreligious to Christ Follower. From in the culture to disciple maker.

I will be organizing a web book tour in May and I will probably be sending an email to all my readers to ask if you want to help out, of course I will hook you up with a copy. To make sure you get that email just leave a comment on this post.