strippers that protested the church – turn-a-bout is fair play.

I read an article yesterday about some strippers who were protesting a church during its Sunday morning service. They sat outside in front of the church, had hamburgers and waved at the traffic.

They did it because the church had been coming to the strip club, standing around outside and videotaping customers. They got tired of it and turned it around.

The church was surprised. According to the story, one member came out and prayed with a woman. The rest ignored it.

I would hate for this to happen to the church at which I preach, but on the other hand, this could be one of the best things that ever happened to that church.

That strip club had the right to come and protest that church as much as that church had the right to come and protest that strip club.

Of course, the church wouldn’t see it that way. They see it as those mean strip club people. Or at least I am assuming the church would do that. Having been in the ministry for almost four decades, that is what I would have thought.

That church saw itself as a beacon of hope and didn’t see the women in that strip club as real people. Yes, they had a mission and they did what they felt was right – and it was – but there was a turnabout at work here.

All they had done was protest the club, they had never really engaged the people in the club and shown them the kind of love Jesus would have shown.

Yes, the strip club was wrong and a blight on the community. But what that church didn’t realize was that the club had as much right to come and protest them as they did to protest the club.

It is easy to forget that there are people at stake here, that those people are loved by God as much as we are. When we show them our face of anger, we are not showing them the face of God. True, they are doing wrong and need to be told. But just confrontation will not do it.

What will do it is to quit services and go out on the church yard and begin talking with those people, those women, that guy who owned the club that organized the protest. That church needs to engage them in real life evangelism rather than just condemnation.

That is hard to do. A pastor friend of mine stood opposite his church parking lot one Sunday night with another member disguised as a pair of drunk drifters. They wanted to see if anyone would talk to them. One man did. He invited them into church. They were disguised enough that no one knew it was them. No one else did anything except drive by quickly and ignore them.

The world will only be brought to Jesus if we engage it in love. Jesus said it in John 13:34-35: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

There is a time for standing up to wrong. But there is also a time for reaching out, even to people you don’t want to talk to.

Because after all, God reached out to you.