What is needed to-day is not a new gospel, but live men and women who can re-state the Gospel of the Son of God in terms that will reach the very heart of our problems. To-day men are flinging the truth overboard as well as the terms. Why should we not become workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth to our own people? The majority of orthodox ministers are hopelessly useless, and the unorthodox seem to be the only ones who are used. We need men and women saturated with the truth of God who can re-state the old truth in terms that appeal to our day.
It is quite easy to assume that if we understand the gospel accurately and preach it faithfully, our ministry will necessarily be shaped by it. – but this is not true. Many churches subscribe to gospel doctrines but do not have a ministry that is shaped by, centered on, and empowered through the gospel. Its implications have not yet worked their way into the fabric of how the church actually does ministry. These churches’ theological vision has likely arisen from something other than sustained reflection on the gospel.
Gospel centered ministry is more theologically driven than program driven. To pursue it, we must spend time reflecting on the essence, the truths, and the very patterns of the gospel itself. It is an unfortunate development within the history of thought in general and the history of the church in particular that has insisted on driving a wedge between theory and practice. The two belong together in dialogical relationship. Theology here is understood to be fides quaerens intellectum, the ministry of Christian understanding – an understanding that aims for the church’s fitting participation within the drama of God’s redemption.
Warning: if you are put off by a few profanities and a misunderstanding of Calvinism, then please do not click the link below. If, on the other hand, you would like to engage with the culture around you, then please read the article.
I ran across a post entitled The Bullshit Machine which I found challenging and thought I would share it with you. I am not sharing this for shock value, nor do I do it gratuitously. I realize that I risk alienating readers who frown upon the use of profanity, but the risk is worth it if the ideas are heard.
The author of the article points out the futility of living in an unthinking, uncritical society which lives for pleasure (or the avoidance of pain). For example, he writes:
Remember when cafes used to be full of people…thinking? Now I defy you to find one not full of people Tinder—Twitter—Facebook—App-of-the-nanosecond-ing; furiously. Like true believers hunched over the glow of a spiritualized Eden they can never truly enter; which is precisely why they’re mesmerized by it. The chance at a perfect life; full of pleasure; the perfect partner, relationship, audience, job, secret, home, career; it’s a tap away. It’s something like a slot-machine of the human soul, this culture we’re building. The jackpot’s just another coin away…forever. Who wouldn’t be seduced by that?
The struggle I have is that people in the church can be just as unthinking and un-engaged as the people the author describes in the article. In the church, we have real answers to real questions, but too often the church is the last place where people feel comfortable asking those questions. We erect ramparts of rules, lists and tradition as a defense against engaging the culture around us. The ramparts are effective in keeping the world out, but make impossible the mission that Jesus gave us to make disciples.
We, as the church, need to provide a refuge against the inanity that is all around us. We cannot remain content to offer cleaned up, “Christianized” inanity. We must offer real truth and articulate how that real truth speaks against the inanity. We must present the gospel in all its fullness by teaching and demonstrating how it speaks to every issue of life. We must make the church where it is safe to ask difficult questions. We need to provide more than simplistic answers to those questions.
We are flawed people living in a flawed world and we desperately need an intervention from God to make us something we cannot hope to become on our own. Life is a messy affair and the church needs to be willing to walk through that mess to bring people to Jesus.
Forget programs, forget gimmicks. Bring the gospel in a way that can be understood and help people out of the cycle that the author of The Bullshit Machine describes.
If we have the answer (we do in Jesus) we should be living in such a way as to attract people to find that answer. As Jesus said, Keep your light shining . . .
“The care of the age is not alone worry and the trouble and anxiety of making a living. It is the entire spirit which characterizes This Age: worry and anxiety about one’s physical life to be sure, but also the pressure, the drive of ambition for wealth, success, prosperity, and power. All of this is involved in the care, the burden, of This Age.
The point is this: it is the character of This Age to choke the working of the Word of God. The spirit of the Age is hostile to the Gospel. When the Gospel is preached, it often seems to lodge in the hearts of men and women. They hear it, they seem to receive it, they make a response to it. And yet it is often only a superficial response. There is no fruit. As the care, the concern of the Age presses in upon them, they are not willing to pay the price of following Christ. The Word of God is choked and is unfruitful. This Age is hostile to the Gospel, and men often yield to conformity to This Age rather than surrender to the claims of the Gospel. There is a conflict between the Age and the Gospel of the Kingdom.”
Even the best of us has to admit that this is a constant battle. We love God and seek to do his will, but the daily grind can pull us away from that love. We forget that we have been promised “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 1:3 ESV).
