Previously on these pages, I have told you about Bill, the carpenter who recently was saved and baptized in our church. I can’t get him out of my mind.

Bill had expressed to a fellow carpenter the spiritual hunger in his heart. He had no clue what to do with it. The friend said, “Come go to church with me.” Bill’s reply haunts me to this day: “How do I do that?”

The friend was as incredulous. “You just come. You park your car and walk in the front door and take a seat like you owned the place.”

Bill: “Anyone can just walk in?”

“Yep. Anyone.”

Bill did, heard the gospel preached, and responded enthusiastically.

I keep wondering how many other “Bills” there are out there in my community–and in your neighborhood.

You and I who have been going to church literally all our lives (and some of us several months prior to our births!) had no idea Bill existed. Surely, we thought, everyone in my town knows about our church, knows the gospel of Jesus, knows how to be saved, and knows they would be welcome where I worship.

Evidently, that’s not the case.

I grant you that it staggers our minds that anyone in our society could miss out on the Lord’s message with churches on every block and preachers on every station. But that may be the problem. They’re everywhere, so no one notices them any more.

In the months following Hurricane Katrina several of our New Orleans churches came up with some innovations that could hold the clue to reaching the “Bills” in my community and yours. I wrote something about them in the article dated January 15, 2007, (see the archives on our blog) and today went back and reviewed it for this piece.

Sojourn was an innovative start-up congregation located on Magazine Street in uptown New Orleans, aimed toward the post-moderns. James Welch was and still is the pastor, although later they merged with Lakeview Church on Canal Boulevard and hold their meetings in those buildings.

Here’s what happened….

On this particular Sunday night in January of ’07, I worshiped with Sojourn. Their location was a storefront in a block filled with stores, cafes, and banks. The huge plate glass window let the entire community know everything taking place inside.

I wrote, “Turn the lights on inside, fill it with 40 young adults sitting around on folding chairs with soft drinks in their hands, stand some people down front strumming guitars and stroking the violin, and everyone passing down the narrow street will see what you are doing.”

Not only did they see, but some came inside.

No lettering on the window indicated who we were or what was going on. The pedestrians simply saw people having fun and enjoying music. At least three opened the door and came inside without an invitation. Two turned out to be druggie-types who talked too loud and seemed not to know what planet they were on, but the third person stayed.

I wondered, “When was the last time people going past your church were sufficiently intrigued to stop and come inside without an invitation?”

Gentilly Baptist Church is located on Franklin Avenue in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. Prior to Katrina, this was one kind of church. Afterwards, it became something else entirely.

Elysian Fields Avenue Baptist Church (on the thoroughfare of the same name) had to be destroyed as a result of the hurricane. Pastor Ken Taylor brought the remnants of his congregation to Gentilly, a church that had taken a great deal of damage and lost its pastor, David Arceneaux, and most of its congregation. Eventually, the two churches merged and Ken became the pastor, where he’s still serving today (as well as continuing to teach in our seminary as Professor of Urban Missions).

While their plant was being rebuilt, Ken and his congregation placed folding chairs on the lawn in front of the sanctuary and held their worship services in the open air. On several occasions, motorists would stop, get out, and join them. Neighbors whom they had not met walked over and took a seat.

I’ve not talked to Ken lately, but cannot help wondering since they are now back in their buildings, if he feels they’ve lost something. That is, have the walls of the buildings become barriers between them and their community? Or do strangers still walk in, attracted by the music and fellowship?

St. Bernard Baptist Mission is located alongside what, prior to Katrina, was one of our oldest, saddest, and most dangerous subdivisions, the St. Bernard Housing Development. Pastor Lionel Roberts no longer lives in that area, but had a burden for the residents since he grew up there. (These days, the entire development has been demolished and multi-income housing is being constructed. Lionel is looking forward to establishing a ministry to the neighbors yet to arrive.)

One Sunday before the development was razed, people were picketing up and down the streets, trying to bring pressure upon the city fathers to save their homes. Television stations gave them ample coverage and some pickets erected small tents and camped out there.

On Sunday morning, Lionel Roberts prepared to begin his worship service the usual way. Then he had an idea.

Before Katrina had scattered its residents, Lionel would sometimes turn on an outside loudspeaker and broadcast his worship service into the neighborhood. With no one living there since Katrina, he had not been doing this since returning from evacuation. But this morning, he turned on the outside speaker and began the service.

“When we started that morning,” Lionel told me, “I think there were 6 of us sitting there. Members of my family. We sang a hymn and read a Scripture and I was leading a prayer. That’s when I heard the front door open and the rustling of feet. When I ended the prayer, I looked up and there must have been 50 people sitting in front of me.”

They had heard what the church was doing and wanted to be a part of it.

Not far from where I live is a small produce market that has since gone out of business. I’m pretty sure I know why they didn’t make it.

The front door of that establishment is wide enough to drive a truck through, which is precisely what would occur as farmers brought in citrus fruit, watermelons, and vegetables to sell. However, from the busy street motorists were unable to see any of it.

Glancing in the direction of that market, what a driver sees is only paintings of fruit on the face of the building. Clearly, the owner wanted people passing by to see what he was offering, but he gave them drawings instead of the real thing.

What I wonder is what would have happened had he opened the store in the mornings, and immediately dragged out bins containing fruit and veggies so all the world could see what was fresh that day.

Most produce markets do that, and wisely.

What if your church did that?

What if we quit hiding our light under a bushel? What if we took our light into the community–or at least onto the front lawn!–and let it shine there?

What if we met Bill halfway?

A minister of music e-mailed my office, asking if he could bring his choir to New Orleans and do some concerts for our people. “We’d like to encourage them,” he said.

I thanked him and then suggested a different approach from what he had in mind.

“Our church people don’t need more sanctuary concerts or more meetings to attend. But the neighborhoods can use all you want to give. So consider this approach–

“Bring working choir members. People who can do yardwork or repair houses or build new ones. And from time to time, let them stop working and gather on the sidewalk and begin singing. They will draw a small crowd–maybe a half-dozen or as many as fifty–and they’ll do more good singing there for 10 minutes than they would presenting a full program inside a church building.”

He said he liked this idea. I hope they followed through.

If they did, I know what happened next.

His people would love doing this so much, they would return home and decide to do the same thing in their own city. Imagine a group of singers from your church outside the Wal-Mart in Columbus, Mississippi, breaking into harmony. A man’s quartet in Warrior, Alabama, at the local grocery store parking lot, doing nothing but singing the Lord’s praises. A dozen children at a skating rink spontaneously singing about Jesus.

I’m not talking about anything very formal, certainly nothing they’d need to ask anyone’s permission for. Nothing with a ‘hook,’ either. No gimmicks, no nothing. Just breaking into song.

Putting the goods on display and letting the Lord take it from there.

Jesus said, “No one lights a lamp and hides it under a basket.” (Matthew 5:15)

I respectfully beg to differ, Lord. We in the church do it all the time.

“You are chosen to show forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (I Peter 2:9. My paraphrase.)

As I write this, we’re about to enter the Christmas season. This is a great time to go caroling in your neighborhood and at your local shopping centers. Merchants will welcome you, I guarantee.