My wife has been listening to Ed Stetzer’s messages from the Reform and Resurge 2006 conference while she’s washing the dishes. She told me that she’s really enjoying what Stetzer has to say.
I’ve listened to Understanding Culture and will eventually get around to Breaking the Missional Code.
[tags]missional, mission, culture, Ed Stetzer, Resurgence[/tags]
Over the last few months I’ve been challenged in my thinking about loving others. In particular I’ve been rethinking my understanding of loving those who are outside the church. I’m still working through this so my thoughts are not well developed and I still seem to mostly be asking questions of myself and my church background.
I think that in the past I’ve made a distinction between loving those inside the church and those outside the church that amounts to the following:
Now at first glance there may not seem to be anything wrong with those statements. On further thought though I’m questioning my motivation for loving those outside the church. Of course wanting to share the Gospel with someone is a very loving desire. I’m not saying that is wrong. But I wonder if I (and many other Christians) would see much value in loving someone if I knew there was no chance of ever sharing the Gospel with that person and that the individual would never visit my church. I suppose my question is this: “Is doing good to someone valuable, good, and glorifying to God in itself?” The answer, I’m sure you would agree, is an emphatic “YES”. However, I think the way we approach those on the outside indicates that we don’t really believe it (as in this way of thinking and belief changes the way I live). It seems to me that the question often lurking in the back of our minds when considering our interaction with those outside our group is “Will this give me an audience for sharing the Gospel?”. Yet, wouldn’t an attitude produced by the Gospel say that loving others (meeting needs, offering help, doing good, etc) is itself the right thing to do whether you get an audience or the people think any differently about you? Isn’t love a witness not just a means to being a witness to the Gospel?
Shouldn’t we love others because love naturally flows out of a heart transformed by God’s grace not merely because of the results that love may produce. Maybe you already think like this and you’re wondering how I’ve been so lost all this time. I suspect though that you may recognize the pragmatic motivation for loving unbelievers in your own heart too. It seems as though that type of thinking about love is the norm within many of our churches. I pray that my own heart and thinking would be radically changed so that I may love those on the outside as God loved me when I was outside of His family.
[tags]love, mission, church, Christian living, loving others[/tags]
Desiring God has released another video clip of an interview with Tim Keller. In this video Keller discusses whether the church he pastors is “emergent”.
Summary: Redeemer is reaching the people emerging/emergent churches are trying to reach, but probably could not be considered emergent.
Download/watch the video (Quicktime required).
Mark Lauterbach of GospelDrivenLife has been writing a series entitled “Relevance or Faithfulness?”. His conclusion is that the distinction between relevance and faithfulness in making the Gospel know is a false distinction. He has some great things to say in these posts. I’ve listed and linked them below.
[tags]Gospel, ministry, mission, missional, contextualization, culture[/tags]
I preached on 1 Peter 2:9-10 this evening.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (ESV).
[tags]preaching, Bible, missions, missional[/tags]