What did our Master intend the church to be?
What has it become?
The church over time has gained more influence through politics and economic might. However, the church has seen moral and social decline over the same amount of time.
The church is in decline since 1990. The church is not even keeping up the birth rate. The church is not winning its own children.
What has gone wrong?
Not enough resources? No.
Not educated enough? No.
Not dedicated enough? Yes and No (but not really the problem).
The problem is lack of imagination! We don’t really think the mission and the purpose of the church is truly possible. So we reinterpreted the mission and the purpose of the church through the lens of our consumer culture. We reinvent the church in the form of what we know how do to and not what Jesus wanted it to be because we don’t understand what he wanted it to be and we have doubts that it can be what he wanted to be.
We don’t know how to heal and transform, but we can market.
We don’t know how to be community, but we can run committees.
We don’t know how to be the church, but we know how to run a
corporation/institution.
It takes no imagination to copy what the world is doing. But it take lots of imagination to see what Jesus envisions for the church.
We have taught our people a lot of information about God, but not how to experience God.
Consumerism is not just buying stuff. It is a worldview and the largest worldview. It puts the self in the center of the worldview and ascribes value to only those things that satisfies itself. In Consumerism nothing has inherit value, everything is a commodity. A commodity has no inherit value, but it has an assigned value. It values is based on what it can be exchanged or traded for. The power of a commodity is valuable for what it can do for the self.
Do we worship God for who he is or for what he can for us.
How does Scripture speak of the imagination?
OT:“remember.” Don’t just review, but review and re-experience/re-engage with the past.
NT: historic presence tense. The writers speaks in the now. It is not that “Jesus went,” but that “Jesus goes.” This is done to pull the reader into the story.
Jesus: parables and sermons
Dallas Willard’s V.I.M.
How are people transformed (into anything):
Vision- The ability to see what your life would be like if you (fill in the blank) eg. learned to speak Spanish.
Intention- When the vision is compelling enough, then you develop the will to move forward.
Means- How does one actually follow through with the vision. How do you actually learn Spanish?
Where do these things happen in your church?
Do we allow the consumer culture to dictate the vision for the church?
“Preacher show me how to get the life I want (better life, good marriage, respectful kids).
But is the church transforming the vision people have or are we just providing the means to the consumerist worldview? Jesus becomes, not he vision, but the means. We speak to the felt needs of the people, while trying to work in a little Jesus. We can’t do both. The consumerist vision does not lead to or equate with the Jesus’ vision for the church.
Leadership is not giving people what they want, but giving people what they don’t know they want.
How do we fix this:
A return to preaching
Preaching vs. Teaching (announcing vs. explaining)
Instruction vs. Inspiration (a vision must come first. People must buy-in first. We are teaching “how-tos” to people don’t want to.)
No one becomes a Christian because they want to or feel they should. They become a Christ followers because they have fallen in love with the beauty of Jesus.
Give people a vision for what Jesus is.
Vision from the pulpit and how-to in small groups.
Experts vs. Experience (the disciples we told to announce the KOG but not teach about the KOG because they had experience Jesus, but did not understand)
Reconsider the Cloud of Witnesses
Hebrews 11-12 Lift up the lives of the saints who have gone before us. They can show us what a life with Jesus looks like.
“Can I get a witnesses?” People who are alive who can show us what life in the way of Jesus likes like.
Listen globally
Read like a Hebrew
“Remember” (use imagination)
Lectio Divina
Learn how Ignatius of Loyola suggested reading Bible stories (put yourself into he story)
1 comment:
I'm jumping in in the middle of all this, so I will probably sound dumb. The word that kept coming to mind for me was "faith." Do we have faith enough to believe that Christ, not our own ideas, not our own cluture of consumerism, can transform and save us? Do we have faith enough in the simplicity of the gospel and its message to stick with that, or do we need to add to it with our own expertise?
Also, how does Evergreen do with its "preaching?" Is it proclaiming, or is it more teaching? Honest question.
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