Community of Invitation

I was pondering today the church as a community of invitation. A community that follows the example of Jesus Christ by inviting people to something better. The words of Jesus to Peter and Andrew, "Come, be my disciples, and I will show you how to fish for people!" (Matt. 4:19) The response of Peter and Andrew to this invitation is one of obedience. They simply leave their nets and follow. A simple response to a seemingly simple invitation. There is also an invitation from Jesus to his disciples which invites them to partake of bread and wine. Another seemingly simple invitation that invites the disciples to something that is bigger than themselves. The response of the disciples is the simple act of obedience.

From what I can tell there is something profoundly power in this simple invitation. Christ invites people to himself in a very unhuman manner, it is an invitation from the other. Christ's invitation does not contain requirements. It is not, "Better yourself and follow me" or "Acknowledge your faults and follow me." Christ simply invites his disciples to follow him, to eat with him, to partake of something better and bigger than themselves. I think that there is something the church should glean from this.

I'm thinking the church probably needs to be a community of invitation. A community that invites people to dinner, to relationships, to the Body of Christ. Regardless of where people are at. Do we demand people to be perfect and then invite them? Or, is it after this invitation to this life that is better, that is more than the individual, that people encounter God and then learn of themselves? The gospel is profoundly good and perhaps we should spent more time inviting people to this, and I'm thinking this invitation probably looks a bit different than an altar call.