We all have our levels of discomfort we seem willing to bear and our levels of discomfort, what we even find uncomfortable, differs from person to person and all of us, at some level, will allow that lure of an easy life to overtake. When Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him, this is precisely what I think he is calling us to put to death. For the sake of the gospel, we must die to our comfort. Those of us who won’t will end up killing the church.

I have long been convinced that one of the biggest enemies of the gospel is our own personal comfort. There are simply some lines that we seemingly are unwilling to cross. Some of our lines may differ, there are levels to which we are willing to tolerate some discomfort but even our discomfort is largely within the bounds of what we are comfortable being uncomfortable with (if that makes sense?) But if we are serious about the cause of the gospel, we are going to have to get a bit uncomfortable.

I am reminded of the missionaries who told me that there seems to be some sort of common belief that they must just be people who love snakes in their beds or civil unrest. It’s alright for them – they probably love the adventure – but it’s not really for me. Whilst I’m sure there are some who relish the adventure, I am sure many more are less enamoured with dangerous animals and less than sanitary conditions and are, instead, motivated by the belief that somebody needs to take the gospel where nobody is willing to go. They chose to be uncomfortable for the sake of Christ.

It is very similar to the kind of noise those of us in deprived communities often hear. It’s alright for people like you, but it isn’t for me. I’m never quite sure what they mean by that in my case. Not least, most who insist it’s alright for people like me because I’m more like the people here than they are usually also want to tell me how middle class my upbringing was and I definitely am. You can’t really have that both ways. But even if they have some other reason – and I know unquestionably middle class people who have gone to deprived places who have heard similar things – the line remains largely the same: that would be a level of discomfort too far for me. But, of course, because we know it isn’t the “spiritual” thing to say, we dress up our discomfort by insisting that the people who do go must just love living next door to drug addicts on council estates or serving in areas where racial tension runs high.

But of course, we have the same problem the closer to home we get too. Forget being asked to move anywhere, we hear these comments from people being asked to share the gospel in the nicer areas they have decided to live in. Churches with evangelists, or any people committed to evangelism, will often point to such people and say ‘it’s alright for you.’ I have been in middle class churches where any evangelistic endeavour or people of a more evangelistic bent are just viewed as loving being gauche, weirdos who must just love awkward conversations about Jesus or people who have no concern about whether they keep their jobs or not. It’s alright for them, but it’s not for me. It’s all a level of discomfort too far.

Then there are the lads who perhaps are a bit worried about evangelism but they’re at least willing to sit and talk with members of the church and help them grow. But meeting up for half an hour, in a lunch break, that’s a bit of a pain. Easier just to not do that. Then there are evenings out, but that’s all a hassle too. There is a level of discomfort even here that stop us from bothering engaging in discipleship and giving up almost any of our time for the sake of building the kingdom.

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