Jesus and The Cool Kids

[12] He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. [13] But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, [14] and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

[15] When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” [16] But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. [17] And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ [18] But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ [19] And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ [20] And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ [21] So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ [22] And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ [23] And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. [24] For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” - Luke 14:12-24

I like to hang out with the cool kids.  Don't we all?  Cool kids smell better, look better, act better, and usually make me feel cool too.

Cool kids usually don't need Jesus.

Sometime I wonder if our evangelistic efforts in our churches are stunted because we don't gravitate towards the most broken in our society.

Do cool kids need Jesus?  They sure do, but the problem is that most of them don't know they do.  They are not desperate enough.  Are our lives and churches structured around the people that Jesus said would receive him?  The broken, weak, and needy?  The "least of these"?  Why not?

It's awkward, I know.  I don't want to do it either.  But what part of the Cross is not awkward?  Painfully awkward.

I'm not advocating for a new "program".  Just wondering out loud about how we do evangelism and how we could maybe do it better.