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For the past few months I have been reading many books, blogs, and articles discussing the church and where it has been and where it needs to go. As with most books I find myself agreeing with some major points while disagreeing with others. In the middle of it all I come to find that the church (universal) needs to pursue moving toward being more missional (making it a primary commitment to have a missional calling of people to God, Frost & Hirsch 229, The Shaping of Things to Come) in its methodology than it has in its Christendom past. While this ideal is very common and trendy among new church leaders and authors it depresses me when I read such great ideas because I feel as though it is not going to work, or rather that it will never happen. At least not in western America. While the traditional church (Christendom) is at the end of the road and will eventually crash, I fear that Christianity in the west may fall as well. Maybe that is what it will take in order for the Church to have more of a Christ driving mission towards loving people and worshiping God. People can write books and plant new churches or new communities driven toward these ideals, but they will continue to be quieted by contemporary distractions of agenda based organizations.
Perhaps I am a pessimist, though that is not my goal.
I hope for the sake of all that we can learn to suffer more for the gospel, while leaving our agenda's at the door and come before Christ ready to say I am a sinner, I need your grace, I need your love, I lift you up, and I am ready to share that love with others. We all have a story. We all need God.
-Cheers
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music:::Radiohead inrainbows
book:::The Shaping of Things to Come
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2 comments:
I get depressed whenever I think about where we need to be as a people of God, and where we actually are as a people of God. I don't think that's pessimism; it's reality. We know we are a sinful, broken people too selfish to perfectly serve God.
But it's in those moments of depression when I am reminded that everything always looks impossible from the lens of man. But nothing is impossible for God.
Here is a quote that I have forgotten the source to, "Cheer up Church, you're worse off than you think."
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