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Friday, June 24, 2005
Once again, from Brian McLaren in "The Church On The Other Side":
"The new church must face this power deficit and be serious about building better Christians out of us all. So what would a better Christian look like? What is the profile of the new Christian? This is something for every pastor and serious Christian in the transition zone to lie awake at night struggling with and praying about. Whatever the profile is, it must be realistic; the last thing we need is to create some ideal that will either make us all feel more guilty than we already do, or make us look like even bigger fools when we fail to live up to our new, higher ideal. That's something I love about the Gospels: We see Jesus calling the disciples to a better way, yet we see them as quite normal buffoons like the rest of us, bumbling along toward it. The Bible has realism.
But the Bible also maintains an idealism--the ideal that people can be 'born again.' People can grow toward the kind of straight-talking, enemy-loving, phariseeism-transcending, skeptic-inspiring, poor in spirit, and rich in Spirit discipleship our Lord proclaimed. Jesus can turn a rag-tag band of fishermen, rednecks, intellectuals and common folk into a community of difference-makers. He can start with raw material such as we are."
So, for today, what is the profile of the "new Christian" that we need to be effective in reaching the world for Christ? Obviously, to answer the question you'll have to think through what it is that turns off those to Christianity as it's practiced in Flower Mound in 2005 and what would make it more attractive to those seeking true faith. Loaded question, so get after it!
Brent 4:47 AM
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