Friday, May 20, 2005
Jollyblogger Rises
It's been almost 2 weeks since I asked someone to exegete Hebrews 6:1-3 for me. I got a lot of discussion, both here and here. But it was only on Wednesday that someone, namely Jollyblogger, put up a post on that passage, and its context. David does not in that post acknowledge my challenge (he has elsewhere), but it is an exegesis of the passage in question.
It is a great post, I recommend it to all.
And while we are reading Jollyblogger, read this great post as well.
It is a great post, I recommend it to all.
And while we are reading Jollyblogger, read this great post as well.
In other words, when we ask today about the keys to church growth and church planting we'll get sociological answers rather than theological answers. Rather than saying the keys are a clear gospel, biblical preaching and biblically based ministry we'll be told that the keys are things like location, adequate parking and facilities, and accurate demographic analysis of a community.Right on David -- Right on!
To be sure, the importance of the gospel, biblical preaching and biblically based ministries aren't denied, these are taken as baseline minimums which all churches must have. The mindset seems to be "well of course we need those things, but in and of themselves they aren't enough to grow a church." The keys to growth are these sociological factors.
I am not saying that sociological factors should be unimportant, I am just saying that we've turned things upside down. It's the theological factors that are key and the sociological factors are the tangential matters.
