The Tangible Kingdom

I’m reading a book called The Tangible Kingdom. While I disagree with some things in the book, I agree with some things and have been convicted by some things as well.
There is a quote in the very beginning of it that I have coming back to often.  It has me really thinking deeply about living missionally.

Here is the quote:
“The lack of ‘conversions’ are not the problem.  That’s just a visible symptom of the level of blindness in our present forms of church and the fact that our Christian kingdoms need more of God’s Kingdom to ‘emerge’ within us.”

What his quote shows me is that my own personal repentance of sin will lead to people coming to Christ around me.

This quote was very helpful to me.  It helped me see that still I was still just thinking in terms of finding the problem and fixing the problem, rather than realizing the problem is me and developing within me a heart for what God has a heart for – people.

The answer is not to just go out, because I have to as a Christian, and share Christ in order to get more conversions.  The answer is to live life in such a way that my heart is passionately seeking God’s face, doing the hard work of repentance everyday and continually developing within me a burden to see people saved by the Gospel of Christ.

My heart is the issue and I need to stop trying to make conversions the issue.

By making conversions the issue and not my heart, I never have to look into my wretched, dirty, sinful heart and do the hard work of repentance.  This helps me see more and more how sinful I am and how little I seem to care for the lost; and how desperate I am for God’s grace…just like those who haven’t trusted in Christ yet.

So, back to the quote, this means that the “present forms of church” need to foster within its members an understanding that ongoing repentance must be occurring in order to do real evangelism, not a weekly, poorly attended, door-to-door evangelism program.

What would our church look like if all of us understood that we must repent of our sin in order to see those around us come to know Christ?
Would you start repenting of sin?