It was originally sparked by the news that Australians consider church authorities (generally) to be the least trustworthy of public leaders, with 75%+ of the general population distrusting church authorities. I wanted to say that we've been sitting in our comfortable enclaves, expecting others to come to us for the last half-century; now I think we're going to have to go out and meet society on its terms and wrestle with complicated living-it-out-in-love and not just back the safe this-is-what-the-bible-says-in-theory.
And it occurred to me that Paul went out of his comfort zone to tell the gospel. He didn't wait for non-Hebrew societies to beat down the doors of the believers in Jerusalem, he took the news out to other cities, dealt with people on their own turf, lived among them like they were worth his time and effort, and brought the gospel to them at the same time as his everyday living showed these people that they were valuable to him and valued by God - so much so that He sent His son.
It was the 'community of believers' that Paul created in each city: people with nothing more in common to each other than the grace of God. And they met and theologised over his writings and probably the Jewish teachings filtered through the lens of Jesus' ministry and the recountings of his teachings and actions, broke bread and prayed, and then went back out into their usual regular unbelieving communities, taking their 'gospel' with them.
I feel like this should have been the methodology of the modern Christian church, but it's kind of failed. Church events tend to require the community to come to us rather than us going out into the community. There are no church stalls
