One In Jesus

In a later post, Mark Love adds to his thoughts on evangelism —

So, one of the points I’ve tried to make in this series is that if you think the driving question of Scripture is, “how can an individuals be forgiven for their sins?”, then relationships with individuals tend to be instrumentalized. That is, others become prospects defined around an abstract identity, “sinner.” We become salespeople, who at some point, to be effective, must isolate the other in their status as sinner. … So, all we have then is the heaven/hell card. 

It’s true, and I confess that I’ve long felt uncomfortable with our traditional approaches to evangelism for this reason — going back to high school. This is not a Church of Christ problem. It’s a problem shared by all American Protestants, especially evangelicals but also Fundamentalists. We are Americans, and so we see the gospel as something to sell — and the lost as potential buyers. And the result is to dehumanize our relationships with non-Christians. And the Sermon on the Mount is all about not objectifying people. Continue reading →

When we say “mission,” most people think “evangelism” — which is not wrong. It’s just very badly incomplete and in desperate need of repair.

I’m hardly an expert, but I would like to share a little of my learning, for whatever it’s worth.

1. Thompson is, I believe, quite correct to notice how evangelism is at best a very minor theme of scripture. The Great Commission is, of course, an important evangelism passage, but after it, there’s not much. Paul’s many epistles to churches he founded or planned to visit rarely speak of evangelism except indirectly. He doesn’t urge his readers to go tell their neighbors about Jesus. He urges them to live together as Jesus would have them live. Therefore, our most important evangelism is found in first being the church we’ve been called to be. We’ve got to live the Sermon on the Mount.
2. On the other hand, I think the far more serious error is in imagining that the world will find Jesus all by itself, without sacrifice or cost by us.

Continue reading →

We now move to a recent book from Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative.

Webber argues that the assembly should reflect how living today reflects our hope for eternity.

Not only does worship point to the culmination of all history in the new heavens and new earth, but it also shapes the ethical behavior of God’s people to reflect kingdom ethics here on earth. Consequently, the ethical life of the church is an eschatological witness to the world of how people should be living and how the world will be under the reign of God.

(pp. 65-66).

Amen. Webber criticizes modern trends — Continue reading →

Story

What is the message that the assembly should communicate to the members and to visitors? There are, of course, countless good things that one might teach, but what is the over-arching goal?

Sometimes we approach the assembly microscopically, that is, focusing on today’s lesson without thought to the lesson taught over the course of the years.

I’m persuaded that we’ve greatly erred in not communicating the Story as well as we should have. By the “Story” I mean the over-arching narrative of Scripture. It’s a true Story. Indeed, it’s Truth.

You see, if we fail to teach the Story, then all the other lessons become atomistic, separated truths that aren’t seen as part of the total Truth of God’s revelation. And so, we pick and choose the parts that seem relevant and ultimately decontextualize our preaching and our worship.

Hence, we might overly focus on the therapeutic lessons in the gospels. The preacher will be praised by the members who are struggling to cope with insecurity, low self-esteem, and depression, but it won’t be because they truly understand how they fit into God’s Story. They might in fact consider Jesus to have come to earth and died so that they could feel better about themselves — which is not really quite the point. Continue reading →

If the church’s mission centers around Jesus as incarnated in the local congregation, then liturgy becomes extremely important in terms of spiritual formation. That is, if God wants the church formed in the image of Jesus, then how we conduct the assembly becomes a question of mission.

Now, for the last 30 years or so, the assumption has been that the assembly is missional (good) and that its mission is to be achieved by being “seeker sensitive.” That is, the mission of the assembly has become evangelistic — rather than spiritually formative for the church itself.

Michelle Van Loon recently wrote, Continue reading →