more will be revealed

Every week or so I receive an email newsletter from Evangelicals for Social Action with stories and articles dealing with Christ in our culture, holistic ministry, public policy, and caring for creation. In their most recent newsletter was an article titled “Evangelism in the City” written by Lesslie Newbigin, the internationally known British missionary, pastor, apologist, and theologian. Lesslie, when faced with the question of how to share the gospel in the context of an inner-city in the West, responded with this:

How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it.

Does that sound too simplistic? I don’t believe it is. Evangelism is not some kind of technique by means of which people are persuaded to change their minds and think like us. Evangelism is the telling of good news, but what changes people’s minds and converts their wills is always a mysterious work of the sovereign Holy Spirit, and we are not permitted to know more than a little of his secret working. But - and this is the point - the Holy Spirit is present in the believing congregation both gathered for praise and the offering up of spiritual sacrifice, and scattered throughout the community to bear the love of God into every secular happening and meeting. It is they who scatter the seeds of hope around, and even if the greater part falls on barren ground, there will be a few that begin to germinate, to create at least a questioning and a seeking, and perhaps to lead someone to inquire about the source from which these germs of hope came. Although it may seem simplistic, I most deeply believe that it is fundamental to recognize that what brings men and women and children to know Jesus as Lord and Savior is always the mysterious work of the Holy spirit, always beyond our understanding or control, always the result of a presence, a reality which both draws and challenges  - the reality who is in fact the living God himself. And God’s presence is promised and granted in the midst of the believing, worshipping, celebrating, caring congregation. There is no other hermeneutic of the gospel.

After reading that, I’ve been wondering how this would relate to a church in the suburbs, where people don’t live as close together in neighborhoods as the city, where people often drive 10 minutes to buy their food or clothing or for entertainment, where everyone has a fence around their yard. What might this look like in the context in which I live?

Being results in Doing.
Being does not equal Doing.
Doing cannot and should not define Being.
Being and Doing are intertwined, interconnected.
Being without Doing results in a dead faith.
Doing without Being results in performance-based salvation.
Being fleshed out in Doing represents the Gospel.
Jesus was before He did.
Who I am must be founded in who Christ is in me.
What I do must reflect the life Christ desires me to live.

If you have any knowledge at all of human nature, you know that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors. The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness; but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Admiring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be changed into exactly the opposite, to hate, jealousy, and revenge. Christ, however, never asked for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. He consistently spoke of “followers” and “disciples.”

- Soren Kierkegaard

I came across a good blog post via Reddit today. I don’t usually find articles on Reddit pertaining to the Christian faith that are positive in any way, but here was one. It’s entitled “What’s Wrong with Evangelical Christians and Why are we Destroying America? (Part One)“. The author, Coleman Luck, points out some serious issues indicative of how sick the church is right now:

- How the evangelical church is addicted to choosing destructive leaders
- The focus on the “Superstar Pastor”
- That for most of us, emotion has become the measure of Truth.
- Much of what we consider to be God’s Power in our pulpits is nothing but the Grand Illusion of Celebrity and its hypnotic influence on crowds.
- The core of the disease is the Addiction to Spiritualized Power.

Take some time and read it…it’s worth it.

Another thought-provoking post from inward/outward:

The church founded by Jesus is intended to be the embodiment, the incarnation, of who he is so that he might be seen, discovered, known, experienced in the local corporate life of those who have been invaded by him. I emphasize the word local. What would a true expression of Christ?’s body look like today, in the neighborhoods where we live, if it really embodied the essence of Jesus lived out corporately?

I think the central question for those of us who are in Christ and are eager to obey his ?follow me? is how to be authentic church in the 21st century. How can we learn from our unfaithfulness to God?’s covenant in the past? How can we embody, incarnate, become the local expression of Christ?’s body now?