I have a friend who wants to plant churches. He doesn’t want to raise support, but to support himself bi-vocationally. Also, he wants to reach those people that most churches don’t (or won’t) reach. He figures that just as Christ came into this sin-sloshed world to save us, he needs to go into a sin-sloshed place to reach the unreached people of our culture. I can’t disagree on any of this.
But then he told me what he wants to do as his bi-vocational job: He wants to tend bars. He figures that pastors and bar-tenders have a lot in common.
He may be right about that, but does that make it right?
Oh, and by the way, his wife wants to have a ministry with strippers. She wants to go into strip clubs with a female friend of hers, and befriend the girls in there. If necessary, she says she will buy lap dances, but rather than get a lap dance, use the time to express the love of Jesus to them. She wants to have them over for dinner, and give them birthday parties, and teach them how to manage a budget, and cook meals, and care for babies.
Is it okay for a Christian pastor to be a bartender and for his wife to enter strip clubs?
Is this kind of outreach and evangelism “legal” for Christians? Or, maybe more Christians should be doing this kind of thing, and the only reason we aren’t is because we’re afraid of what “legalistic” Christians will say.
What do you think?
Update: After I wrote this post, I discovered some groups that were doing exactly these things.
