Food for Thought From Reggie McNeal
"People (in America) are starving for spiritual vitality. They're not coming to our churches to find it. It's the first spiritual awakening in our history in America that's happening outside the church--when most of our churches are too secular for the culture, because we don't need God to run them." (emphasis mine)
--It's A. D. 30 All Over Again
Too secular for the culture? Do you agree?
If so, how did we get there?
How does the church catch up with the spirituality that is coursing through the unchurched culture?
What would we be doing differently if we decided we need God to run our congregations again?
posted by bill Sloat at 2:47 PM
2 Comments:
Hi guys. Been lurking for a while and loving the material - especially the podcasts! Please know that you're reaching people and touching lives far beyond any feedback you'll ever get.
I'm pretty new to the ministry, but I'll take a swing at your last question...
I'm thinking that if we decided we needed God to run the congregations again we'd flip things around 180 degrees. Instead of encouraging people to "take" Jesus as their savior (which implies simply adding Him to their existing lives) we'd preach that people need to allow Jesus to take THEM. To take them from whatever roads they have placed themselves on and put them on the path of participation in the "redemption of all things back to God" (kudos to whomever came up with that phrase - it's a keeper!)
I think we're quite myopic when it comes to the role of the Christ, and the church has inadvertently helped foster that. People ask things like "what can Jesus do to make my life better," and Christians foolishly try to answer that with promises of peace and joy (and maybe health and riches depending on who's doing the talking.) It seems like the message of the church in the last few decades has been all about felt needs and how Jesus wants to do something special in THEIR lives. And of course He does, but I think we've failed to let them know that life in Christ is way bigger than that. We let people down in the area of helping them to see themselves as a vital part of the Body of Christ, perpetually in action.
I guess I'm not really saying anything that you guys haven't already said, so I'll stop. But I do believe that this is the beginning of the next (last?) great awakening.
God Bless,
John
This is actually Food for thought from Elton Trueblood but it fits here. I was reaching for another book by Trueblood when I saw another on the shelf-- The Incendiary Fwellowship.
Interestingly enough he has a chapter entitled, Conditions of Emergence. I just had to take the time to read it. This book was written in 1967 but Trueblood was already looking at the church of the future. Although his suggestions for renewal are dated I did appreciate his conditions of emergence.
Repentance
A return to the Bible
Hard and clear thinking
"...One of the most important steps in readiness is theological."
All this with an attitude of humility.
"While we must be practical, if the Church is to be renewed, we must be aware of becoming merely institutional."
Keep up the good work.
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