Learning to Listen to the Whole Counsel of God

by: Kevin DeYoung

0

Tweet

What does Jesus want to say to the church in the West? To the church in North America? To the church in the South, or in New England, or in the Midwest? What does Jesus want to say to your church?

That all depends: what is your church like? Where are you strong? Where are you weak? We live in a big country with hundreds of thousands of churches. If you think the issue out there is too much law, you’d be right. If you think the issue is cheap grace, you’d be right about that too. Jesus wouldn’t say just one thing to the church in this country–let alone in the West or in the world–because the church in this country is diffuse and diverse.

If Jesus had seven different letters for the churches in Asia Minor, I imagine he’d have more than one thing to say to the churches in North America.

Ephesus was your listless, loveless church. They were orthodox, moral, and hard working.  But they weren’t concerned about the lost and may not have been too concerned about each other. They were doctrinally sound, naval-gazers. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Love.”

Smyrna was your persecuted, 10-40 window church. They were afflicted, slandered, and impoverished. But they were spiritually rich. They were vibrant, but fearful. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Be faithful.”

Pergamum was your ungrounded, youth-infused church. They were faithful, passionate witnesses. But they had compromised with the world and accommodated to their sexually immoral and idolatrous culture. They were missional, but misguided. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Discern.”

Thyatira was your warm-hearted, liberal church. They were strong in compassion, service, and perseverance. But they undervalued doctrinal fidelity and moral purity. They were loving, but over-tolerant. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Think.”

Sardis was your flashy and successful, but ultimately shallow megachurch. They were like your big Bible-belt churches chocked full with nominal Christians. They had a great reputation. But in reality, they were spiritually dead. They were the church of the white-washed tombs. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Wake up.”

Philadelphia was your small, storefront, urban church. They felt weak and unimpressive. But they had kept the word of God and not denied his name. They were a struggling, strong church.  To them and to us, Jesus says, “Press on.”

Laodicea was your ritzy, influential church out in the leafy part of town. They thought they had it all together. But they were as spiritually poor as they were materially rich. The church was filled with affluence and apathy. To them and to us, Jesus says, “Be earnest.”

We all tend to see certain errors more clearly than others. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we see our own dangers most clearly and don’t presume that every church has the same problems. We must pay attention to the whole counsel of God. We need to study all of it and preach from all of it, not just the stuff that hits our sweet spot. God has a word for all of us—if we are willing to look hard enough and willing to listen.

Read more from Kevin here.

Tags: Kevin DeYoung, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament, Scripture

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

A Vision for Our Cities

by: Tim Keller

0

Tweet

As the main purveyor of influence to surrounding communities, the city is where culture is formed. The Christian desire to shape culture with the gospel therefore requires Christians to live and be active in the city.

Repeatedly throughout the Scriptures, we see God’s concern for cities and the people within them, both those inhabited and dominated by his people, like Jerusalem, and those that were not, such as Nineveh and Babylon. God is just as concerned today about cities as he was back then, and therefore so should we.

There are many reasons why we ought to be concerned about the city, not the least of which are the following:

1. The cities are where people are and increasingly will be.

2. The cities are the key centers of influence culturally, spiritually, and in nearly every other way.

3. The city is God’s invention, part of God’s plan and purpose, and as such should not be regarded as evil. Life in a city is our eventual destiny—or at least our eternal destiny will revolve around a city.

If our intent is to change or have an effect on a city, we have to engage at many different levels.

+ We have to proclaim Christ to individuals and communities. That means church planting, church replanting, and church revitalization. With all of its faults, the church is God’s chosen means of converting and transforming individual lives and the life of any given community. More Christians living out the gospel in the city will bring significant influence and change. We need to help people gain an in-depth understanding of the application of the gospel to their lives.

+ We have to “act justly and to love mercy” (Micah 6:8).

+ We have to engage culture. Cultural forms are the primary way truth is communicated. Christians need to write, make films, and produce music and other forms of artistic expression. To change a city, you have to change how people think and feel.

+ We have to help Christians apply their faith in all that they do, whether business, parenting, education, or anything else.

Dr. Timothy Keller, founder and senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, has developed key teachings on the importance of the city to all churches in this document.

>> Download this powerful and insightful teaching from Dr. Keller here.

We’re glad you are enjoying our free resources! If you are not already signed up for your own free Vision Room account, sign up here. When you subscribe, you will be able to get all our downloads, articles, and resources for yourself.

Tags: Kingdom Concept, Tim Keller, Vision Pathway

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Do You Have a Church of Abercrombie People?

by: Matt Appling

2

Tweet

I’ve been watching the controversy surrounding Abercrombie and Fitch the last couple of weeks.

First, CEO Mike Jeffries made some comments which confirmed what everyone knows: that they don’t actually want most of us wearing their clothes.  That backfired.

Then, Greg Karber tried to make a clever statement by giving used A&F clothes to homeless people.  A lot of us (including me, I admit) thought at first glance that it was a cool idea, until we looked closer and realized it wasn’t.  That backfired too.

No one appreciated Jeffries’ bold honesty about his company’s vision.  So, what does a clothing store for the coolest kids in school have to say to churches?  Maybe more than we might think.

Not My Style

I’ll be honest.  Abercrombie and Fitch is not marketing to me.

I don’t feel comfortable entering the Abercrombie store at our local mall.  I don’t feel comfortable walking past the Abercrombie store.  Something about the oversized photos of half naked models in the entrance clues me in that I don’t belong there.  I never was part of the crowd that they are going after, and I never will be.

But I also get the feeling that I’m not the target market of Hollister.  Or Hot Topic.  Or Gantos.  Or Forever 21.

I think I’m part of Kohl’s target market.

Think about it.  Every store has a target market, a specific niche of people who they want to buy their products.  There’s nothing special about Abercrombie’s strategy.  It’s just that when their CEO admits what is usually implied in such a crass and cavalier fashion, it offends our desire for inclusiveness.  It’s hurtful to people like me (and I’m guessing perhaps you) who aren’t “cool” enough to be included.

Homogenized, Pasteurized Friends

Now, let’s ask a tough question, and get ready to be honest.

Who is in your target market?  Like, as the CEO of your life, what niche of people are you generally spending your time with?

I’d like to think that my target market is pretty diverse and inclusive, but the results show otherwise.

I’ll go first and admit that my friend-group is pretty darn homogenous.  My close friends come from generally the same socio-economic level, have about the same amount of education, and behave in a way that I find, in general, socially acceptable.

At times, I have tried to be inclusive.  But there are many more times when I have not.  I have taken a step back.  I have withheld myself from people because they are a little too different from me in one way or another.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I realize that my target audience is people who are sort of like me.  Maybe that makes me a horrible person.  If that’s the case, then maybe my target audience is horrible people.

The _________ Church

Now, let’s ask another tough question.

Who is our churches’ target audiences?  Can we really say “everyone?”  Why do so many of our churches looks so homogenous then?  Even if your church bucks the trend and looks pretty diverse, is there someone who would have a hard time fitting in at your church?

Is it that homeless man who hasn’t had a shower or clean clothes in months?  Is it the mentally ill woman?  The guy with the left-field theology?  The family with the special needs child?  The teen mom?  The alcoholic?  The guy with the “alternate” lifestyle?

It’s a struggle that churches have had since the New Testament was still being written – how do we help people belong who don’t usually belong?  The alternative is to admit that, on some level, we are running Abercrombie churches:

where of course everyone is equally welcome…

…but some people are more equally welcome than others.

So what do you say?  How diverse is your friend-group?  How diverse is your church?  Who do you think is your church’s target audience?

Read more from Matt here.

Tags: Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament, Matt Appling, Vision Frame

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Moving Toward a Counter-Cultural Community, Part 1: Societal Segregation

by: Timmy Brister

0

Tweet

For the past several weeks, my disciple-making team and I have been working through what a counter-cultural, gospel-centered community of servants looks like. I think this is an important subject matter, one to which I hope to devote several blogposts.

In order for a gospel community to be counter-cultural, we first have to assess what we are encountering in the culture. How does culture and society determine how community is formed and fostered? What are some of the guiding principles and motivations behind its formation? These are questions I find important to determine the starting point, that is, the current reality in which we enter.

I have discovered 11 aspects “societal segregation” that form and foster the community at large. By segregation, I’m talking about ways society separates or isolates individuals to form groups favorable to their preferences and/or convictions. Positively speaking, they may be referred to “affinity” grouping. Most often, this happens naturally.  When multiple aspects of societal segregation are combined, clustering sub-cultures are formed. The eleven aspects of societal segregation are:

11 Forms of Societal Segregation

• Demographically – “age and stage” in life; boomers, busters, Xers, Nones, etc.
• Economically – low, middle, upper class
• Ethnically – black, white, hispanic, asian, “other”
• Sexuality – heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transgender
• Spiritually – religious, spiritual, atheist, Christian, Catholic, etc.
• Geographically – downtown, midtown, suburb, exurban, rural, etc.
• Linguistically – English, Spanish, Korean, German, etc.
• Educationally – not just levels of education but philosophy as well
• Politically – republican, democrat, independent, tea party
• Occupationally – white collar, blue collar, no collar; government, private sector
• Extra Curricularity – hobbies, sports, music, third-place loyalties

These eleven forms/aspects have several uses in society, most notably being how they serve as filters for societal identification. When you get to know someone, you will discover their age (demographic), perhaps where they live (geographic), what they do for a living (occupation), and maybe even what they enjoy doing in their free time (extra curriculars). These aspects can not only serve as filters but also barriers to keep out (separate) those most unlike yourself. If you find someone to be a Hispanic (ethnic), speaking Spanish (linguistic), practicing Roman Catholic (spirituality), construction worker (blue collar), and you are none of them, it is possible that a person with those aspects may never become a part of your community as barriers have been erected (either knowingly or unknowingly) to prevent that from happening. As you can see, using them as filters can lead to creating barriers, but using them as barriers can lead to judgments and stereotypes. These aspects become the basis or grounds for security the kind of community that most suits your preferences or convictions, that makes you most comfortable by security people most like you. Judgments are made about people to determine who is allowed into the community you (and others like yourself) have formed.

In my next post, I will share what I believe to be the internal driving motivations behind societal segregation and five components of heart idolatry surfacing in the process.

Tags: Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament, Timmy Brister

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Developing a “Missional Moleskine” to Understand the Community Around Your Church

by: Timmy Brister

0

Tweet

INCORPORATING “PLACES”

In my first place (my home), I have started a neighborhood through Next Door. Since doing this six weeks ago, I already know about a dozen of my neighbors’ names that I didn’t know the four years prior to living here. We are engaging online through our private/secure community and meeting in person through dinners, events, activities, etc.

In my second place (my work), I recommitted my intentionality with work at Panera Bread. No, I don’t work for Panera. I just work at Panera, about 20 hours a week. By spending this much time there, it becomes my “second place,” giving me the opportunity of getting to know almost all of their employees (I have twelve in my MM right now).  If you are a pastor and are not in your community, let me strongly encourage you to reconsider your work environment if at all possible, at least for a portion of your work week.

In my third places (community), I am mapping my rhythms of where I eat, get gas, buy groceries, go to the park, etc. For example, every Tuesday for lunch I usually eat at Chili’s with my fellow elders. I buy groceries at the same Publix weekly. I go to the same park every Thursday with my boys on my day off (sometimes more). I buy gas at the same 7-11 gas station. My son’s t-ball team plays every Tuesday and Thursday. I have mapped out 6-8 of my “third places” and try to massage that rhythm each week. I bet if you took the time to sit down and map out your life in the city, you could come up with at least five “third places” to be tapped for life on mission.

Since incorporating “places” in my missional moleskine, I am finding ways to befriend non-Christians in every arena of ordinary life. In the last six weeks, I have gone from knowing just a few non-Christians on a first-name basis to now more than 30 whom I encounter on a regular basis. As I anticipate opportunities and open doors to build on those relationships, there will be some that I can make progress.

CHARTING “PROGRESS”

Here’s the progress I’m trying to make to live as a missionary in my city:

• Commit to being intentional, wide-eyed, and receptive to the Spirit’s sending and working.
• Determine to dwell deep (incarnationally) in the city by redeeming ever “place” God puts you.
• Take time to learn and write down the names of non-Christians in the missional moleskine.
• Begin having short, friendly conversations with them, using their first name and making eye contact.
• In those short conversations, express the desire to pray for people in your life, and since you “know” them, you want to include them in your prayers. Ask them to give you one (our a couple) specific things you can pray for them about.
• When non-Christians know you have an interest in their lives to the extent that you are regularly conversing with them and praying for them, they will begin to share more about their lives, at which point you can begin to understand their life narrative/story. The progression moves from context (talk about external matters) to subtext (talk about internal matters).
• Discover ways to build redemptive bridges in everyday conversation based on their narrative. In each story, there are people made in the image of God, living in a fallen world, experiencing brokenness, separation, rebellion, idolatry, and restlessness. You can prayerfully weave nuggets of the gospel in compelling, contextual, and disarming ways that open the door for longer gospel conversations.
• If you have not already, make your life accessible to them, giving them permission to contact you (using appropriate measures). Make sure your posture is one of listening with compassion, openness with trust, and caring with sincerity.
• Address their objections and understand their challenges to understanding and embracing the gospel. While we know that only the Spirit of God can awaken sinners to new life, we also understand that we are those “through whom they believe.” Rarely are people converted the first time they hear the gospel. As you repeatedly share the gospel with them, God does His work through the Word, creating faith and repentance in them. You need to be patient but continually press them into the call of the gospel to repent and believe.
• Incorporate them in gospel community, inviting them to a life of learning and knowing Jesus.  This gives them an opportunity to see what gospel-centered lives look like–where love and forgiveness is experienced and where sin is repented regularly and Christ is treasured preeminently.

This progression is not necessarily linear, as if sharing the gospel or inviting them in gospel community could not come earlier. They are simply steps I try to take in building relationships with those who were at one time strangers and now friends and hopefully soon brothers and sisters in Christ. I did not include ways of blessing, serving, or practically helping others, which certainly could be added here. But one thing I want to stress is that, in the relationship of word and deed, we need boldness in gospel proclamation. Sinners are saved through the sharing of the gospel, not just showing the impact of the gospel in our lives.

WRAPPING IT UP

Like I said earlier, the missional moleskine is just a travelogue of life on mission in your city. If we understand Jesus’ words correctly as sent people in the world (John 20:21), then every one of us is on a mission trip called “life” in the city God placed us. Over time, my hope and prayer is that the missional moleskine will be filled with names of non-Christians in my city being challenged and changed by the good news of Jesus Christ. As they learn to become disciples of Jesus, the relationships established by life on mission become a great avenue for developing them as ambassadors for Christ.

With their own missional moleskine.

Back to Page 1

Read more from Timmy here.

Would you like to learn more about disciplemaking and understanding the community around you? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Tags: Community, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament, Missional Moleskine, Timmy Brister

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Study Your City: Key Questions Missional Christians Should Be Asking About Their City

by: Alex Early

0

Tweet

Over the last few years, the word “missional” has gained particular amounts of attention. However, defining missional can be a complicated process. For example, this week I had a conversation with an aspiring church planter who wants to plant a church in a bar in the southeast as I did a few years ago. He’s been reading, praying, and thinking about what a man on mission looks like. Let’s say you’re in this boat too: being convinced by Scripture and convicted by the Holy Spirit to step out, deeply burdened to see lost people in your neighborhood, bars, coffee shops, gyms, grocery stores, and schools meet Jesus. This means you have to think like a missionary—a mindset that requires both studying the culture you find yourself in, as well as engaging with it.

For starters, identifying the needs, the idols, and the history of the city must become part of your routine thinking. This is the prep work, and oftentimes the success of your ministry rides on it. That’s not to say that God can’t use you or accomplish his will or that all the pressure is you, but a call to lead is a call to prepare. A call to obediently make disciples as Jesus commands (Matt. 28:18–20) is also a command to focus on what’s in front of you. This part of the job can be really fun! Most of it can be done by using a concept already in your vocabulary. No, it’s not what some long word theologians constantly debate over—e.g. sublapsarianism, variegated nomism, or penal substitutionary atonement—rather, it is a simple, but often overlooked word: intentional.

KNOW PEOPLE TO REACH PEOPLE

All missionaries (and if you’re a Christian, you are a missionary) have got to be the most intentional people in the world. Asking questions, studying demographics, and making note of trends help make this possible! If you intimately know whom you want to reach, then you will be better set up to engage people effectively with the gospel of Jesus.

What are the goals, values, and beliefs of your city?

Here are just a few questions that we, as missional Christians, should be asking:

1. What’s happening in my city?
2. Who’s moving into my city?
3. What buildings are going up in my city?
4. What buildings are coming down in my city?
5. How many schools are there in my city?
6. How many people are here in my city?
7. What is the crime rate like in my city?
8. What are the goals of my city?
9. What are the values of my city?
10. What are the beliefs of my city?
11. What is the history of my city?
12. How long has my city been a city?
13. At what times and days does everything come alive in my city?
14. What do the people in my city love about my city?
15. What do people despise about my city?
16. What’s the media saying about my city?
17. What do people in my city put their hope in?
18. Who’s hurting in my city?
19. Who’s succeeding and thriving in my city?

For everyday missionaries, the questions are endless.

Bank clerks, grocery store checkers, hair stylists, and property development workers can tell you so much of what you need to know about your city because they are in the city, working in the city, and up to date on what’s going on in the city.

Perhaps if you don’t know where to start, you should go get a trim and practice asking the person cutting your hair questions.

Dear Christian, are you studying your city?

Read the full story from Alex here.

Tags: Alex Early, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

10 Major Trends Coming Your Way in 2013

by: Brad Lomenick

0

Tweet

Here are a few trends that seem to be capturing major attention as we start 2013. I am not proposing that all of these are positive trends, but simply stating them as a picture of reality as move into 2013 and beyond.

1. Content on demand– everywhere, often and most of the time free.

2. Tech in everything– cars, kitchen, refrigerators, watches, wallets, and other devices.

3. Smart Phone as the center of your world– it is where you consume content, get info, make calls, update my status, and remote control my tv and appliances, along with basically running your life.

4. Integrated social media– social media is no longer a phenomenon. It’s here to stay. And now integrated into everything we do.

5. We are all leaders– because of social media, technology, and the digital space, anyone can create a platform and gain influence quickly. Everyone has access. Small competes with large, and there is an equal playing field for most involved.

6. Authenticity matters– more than ever, we have to be real and genuine and honest.

7. Comfortable Multi-tasking is in– Cars are now being created that drive themselves. For real. We are more than ever creatures of comfort. Comfort so I can do multiple things at once.

8. Touchscreens– experience is now about everything being a touchscreen and swipe technology.

9. Collaboration– working together is more and more becoming the norm. Shared office spaces between companies, shared staff, partnerships, etc.

10. Mergers and streamlining within industries– similar to #9, but specifically as it relates to a formal merger between companies, organizations and churches. This continues to happen with more regularity, and is now happening consistently with churches and non-profit organizations.

Read more from Brad here.

Tags: Brad Lomenick, Kingdom Concept, Recapturing Vision, Vision

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Your Church and the Art of Neighboring

by: Ed Stetzer

0

Tweet

I met Jay Pathak in some consultation work I’ve done with the Vineyard. I was immediately struck by his passion for the community and the mission.

So, when he published The Art of Neighboring, I was excited to endorse it. The book is getting strong reviews on the web, and I wanted you to hear more about it through this interview. There are also some related free resources at their website for the book.

I recently asked Jay and his coauthor Dave a few questions about the book.

You discuss how your assistant city manager talked about how Christians and non-Christians neighbored in the community. What did she say and how did you guys respond?

We invited our assistant city manager to speak with us as a group of pastors, and one of the things she said stopped us in our tracks:

“From the cities perspective there’s not a notciable difference in how Christians and non-Christians relate to their actual neighbors.”

We had been looking for an initiative to take on as pastors, and that’s when we knew we had it. We needed to take the Great Commandment seriously and literally. Starting with our actual geographic neighbors, and then we needed to encourage the people in our churches to do the same.

What if Jesus was asking us to love our actual neighbors?

When Jesus says that all the law and the prophets are summed up in this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s easy to be busy doing ministry, but not engaging your literal neighbors. By the time you come home you can be too tired to even notice your neighbors, let alone love and serve them. But that’s when it hit us: Jesus is a genius. He gave us a strategy that could touch every household in our city, the only problem is that hardly any Christians are actually trying it.

What’s the main reason Christians fail to take the Great Commandment seriously?

We have turned the Great Commandment into a metaphor. We try to take Jesus seriously when he tells us that anyone in need is our neighbor, that even our enemy is our neighbor. We make bumper stickers, t-shirts and posters about loving our neighbor, but don’t even know those that live 30 feet away from our house.

When everyone is our neighbor, no one is our neighbor. We love a metaphoric neighbor with metaphoric love and the metaphoric gospel changes our city… metaphorically of course.

We need to start somewhere, and why not just start with our actual geographic neighbors?

Explain to the readers what the “Chart of Shame” is.

We prefer to call it a “Block Map” (download the map here) This has been a tool we’ve used with many people to help them identify where they stand right now with their neighbors.

We ask people to write out the names of those that live in the closest proximity to them. Most struggle to do this.

We aren’t theologians or poets, so we probably aren’t qualified to talk about love… but we’re pretty sure that loving someone might begin with knowing their name. Or at least making an attempt to know their name.

This is a starting point for being a good neighbor, knowing and retaining the names of your neighbors.

Every homeowner/buyer wants a big backyard. Why might that be counterintuitive for being a good neighbor?

Many of us use our backyards as our primary outdoor space. We have six foot security fences and only venture into our front yards in order to get to and from our cars. Houses used to have front porches so that you could see everyone walking by. In most neighborhoods we moved our interactions to the backyard and as a result we have less interaction with our neighbors.

If we want to be a great neighbor we can start by moving to the front yard so we can be visible to those that surround us. This is a small step we can take to begin to get to know our neighbors.

What are some of the obstacles to overcome when moving from stranger to an acquaintance to a relationship?

One obstacle is learning and retaining the names of our neighbors. It makes a big difference if you can say “Hey Joe” instead of “Hey Bro.” Instead of our neighbors being invisible, we actually begin to see them as real people with real names.

In what way are my motives in neighboring important?

No one wants to be a project. Too often Christians are nice to people in order to get someone to believe what they do. Many of us have been trained to serve others in order to get an opportunity to give a tract, or share our faith. This often comes off as fake, salesy and cheap. Many people around us are wary of the “bait and switch” tactics of evangelical Christians. Not only are they wary, but many believers themselves are tired of feeling guilty and pressured about sharing their faith.

To truly love people we need to stop believing we’re to only be kind to people in order to share our faith. We’re called to be kind to people because we are converted, not in order to convert them.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t share our faith, or that we should be nervous to do so. When it comes to neighboring, you will find yourself in a number of deep conversations and if you love Jesus it would only be natural to talk about Him.

We’re still naïve enough to believe that people will share what they love. If you truly love Jesus and you seek to love your neighbors, you will end up talking about Jesus. If you don’t talk about Jesus, you might want to ask yourself why that is the case. Either you don’t have a relationship with Jesus that naturally flows out into your life, or you don’t love those around you enough to share the deepest parts of your life.

Let’s be clear: The Art of Neighboring isn’t an evangelism strategy. However, when Christians do this people begin to follow Jesus all around them.

What’s the importance of setting boundaries as neighbors?

When you start to love your neighbors, it will be messy. Most of the time we choose those that we want to love, and we choose people that are like us and won’t be too much of a strain on our lives. When we begin to love and serve our neighbors we eventually come across someone who is in real need. Usually they haven’t had someone who truly loves them and they are unsure of how to react to the relationship.

Their needs can begin to overwhelm our capacity. And we need to have a clear sense of the difference between being responsible for others and responsible to others. (We are borrowing this language from the great book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend.)

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

The Culture Around Your Church Determines How Best to Reach It

by: George Hunter

0

Tweet

Emotional Relevance

A second principle behind contagious Christianity is emotional relevance.   The European Enlightenment taught that we human beings are unique creatures because we are rational creatures: while we still experience the emotions that we have inherited from our primitive forbears; education has come to lift us into the life of the mind.  With the fading of the Enlightenment, and the rise of postmodernity, it is becoming apparent that the Enlightenment was wrong by almost 180 degrees.  We are not basically rational creatures who sometimes feel; we are basically emotional creatures who sometimes think.  (Even what we think about is influenced by our background emotional state, and how we think about it is influenced by our feelings at the time.)

This discovery is more-or-less a re-discovery.  Even in the eighteenth century, when the Enlightenment’s onslaught seemed unstoppable, the romantics found ways to speak to, and awaken, the heart—through poetry, fiction, art, and music.  In that same century, Jonathan Edwards reflected upon the indispensable role of “religious affections” in Christian experience, and John Wesley defined Christianity as, substantially, a “religion of the heart.”

Today, we need a fuller recovery of a more holistic understanding of human nature, in part because many people in our communities are fighting an emotional war within, and they are being gradually destroyed by emotional forces—like pride, fear, sadness, anger, hate, jealousy, low self-esteem, and other feelings surging within them that are hijacking their lives.  Furthermore, authentic Christian conversion involves emotional healing, as well as deliverance from a destructive emotional world into the new emotional world of the Kingdom of God, in which such emotions as gratitude, love, humility, peace, healthy self-esteem, and joy enter the convert’s experience.

Effective churches begin where people are, including their emotional struggles and their aspirations for emotional freedom.  Teaching, counseling, preaching, liturgy, evangelism, and other ministries are expressed with emotional sensitivity and relevance.  Today, as the recovery ministries of many churches are learning to engage the emotional baggage that attaches to addiction, they are learning to minister to everyone with emotional relevance.

Tags: George Hunter III, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

The Culture Around Your Church Determines How Best to Reach It

by: George Hunter

0

Tweet

Radical Outreach

The contagion of culturally relevant Christianity and emotionally relevant Christianity are experienced fairly directly.  Take the case of a young man who is now one of our seminary students.  Eight years ago, two Christian friends initiated several conversations with him, and then they invited him to a youth service.  As he walked in, good news and hope were being celebrated through music that engaged him; the speaker spoke his language and seemed to under­stand people like him; and the message offered freedom from the “narcissism” and the “anger issues” that, as he reported, had “tied me up in knots.” He found himself responding, and he kept coming back, and he learned all he could; within several months, he was a man of faith.  The church’s culturally and emotionally relevant ministry engaged him directly.

Another cause of contagion, however, is experienced more indirectly.  I have called it Radical Outreach. This point begins very early in the Christian narrative.  Jesus and his disciples ministered to blind people and deaf people and lame people, to mentally handicapped people and possessed people, lepers and Samaritans, tax collectors and zealots, and others.  The establishment institutional religion of the Temple had written these people off.  Indeed, the Temple’s policy prohibited such people from even entering the temple.  Those populations, and others, were officially “hopeless.”  This is the point: Christianity was conceived in the radical outreach that engaged allegedly hopeless people. It typically begins when we visit their turf, and when begin where they are, rather than where we’d like them to be.

As the Christian movement spread to the cities of the Roman Empire, it gradually took a more institutional form, and in time became more like the Temple.  Rural populations were not urbane and were therefore hopeless.  The Goths, the Visigoths, the Franks, the Vandals, the Frisians, the Vikings, and all of the Celtic peoples, including the Irish, were not Latin speaking, Roman enculturated people. Obviously, all of those barbarians were not civilized enough to become “Christianized.”

This book of tragedy has many chapters, but we do not need to recount the whole volume.  Most churches today, in our nation and in our communities, assume that many types of people are unreachable; it would probably be impossible (they assume) for those people to become real Christians “like us”.   To be specific: For many (or most) churches, pre-literate people, “hard living people,” co-habiting couples, homeless people, bikers, Goths, jet setters, mentally-ill people, Mandarin speakers, people with tattoos, addictive people, introverts, and many others need not apply.

Perceptions, whether they are accurate or not, take on their own reality and, when acted upon over time, become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Using a metaphor borrowed from chemistry, consider “catalytic” growth. When an athlete takes in Creatine before a workout, the supplement catalyzes an energy source within muscles that permits two or three more bench presses, which in turn catalyzes more muscle growth.  In every society, there is an establishment population, and there are “fringe” populations whom the establishment people regard as “impossible” or “hopeless.”  Catalytic Christian movements begin when some of the “hopeless” people are reached, and some of those people experience transparent life change.  Such transformations catalyze spiritual openness in many other people, including establishment people, and the faith now spreads, contagiously.

Tags: George Hunter III, Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >