Thursday, March 01, 2007
Should We Be This Silly?
Do we as a church really want stories like this beign written about us?
"But," comes the retort, "did not the aristocrats of old compete in the construction of chapels and cathedrals, and are not such structures held in high regard today?" Indeed they did and such is proof of God's ability to use even the most poorly motiviated of our actions. But those chapels and cathedrals were hardly as vulgar and kitsch as the common road sign. Such road signs do not invoke a sense of the higher or spiritual but rather the banal - Burma Shave and Wall Drug.
But what really seems so missing from this silliness is the relational. Jesus Christ is the clear divide between the Old and the New Convenant. A person, a man, God incarnate. God's chosen form of communication in this latter age is not word, but person, not media, fleshy medium, and through the atoning acts of the Cross and the Resurrection, Christ enables our indwelling by the very Spirit Himself, making us that fleshy medium. Can such be communicated through a road sign?
The gospel can never fully be communicated through anything other than our lives, transformed, renewed, and abundant. We cannot send messages, only messengers. And send we must. Go out into the world and communicate the gospel, with your very life.
Related Tags: road signs, gospel, church, evangelism, ministry
The giant Jesus on Interstate 75 is bigger than the "Hell is Real" billboard on I-71, and much fancier than the "I need U Jesus" on Route 56 in central Ohio. But the message of America's roadside evangelists is the same.This stuff sends the message in oh so many wrong ways. Not the least of which is the seeming competition for biggest, best, prettiest. It seems clear it is the churches competing with each other and not for the souls of the community.
"We're all trying to convince people of the same thing: their need for Christ," said Ron Carter, administrator of the evangelical Solid Rock Church, which built a six-storey Jesus statue three years ago to inspire travelers.
"But," comes the retort, "did not the aristocrats of old compete in the construction of chapels and cathedrals, and are not such structures held in high regard today?" Indeed they did and such is proof of God's ability to use even the most poorly motiviated of our actions. But those chapels and cathedrals were hardly as vulgar and kitsch as the common road sign. Such road signs do not invoke a sense of the higher or spiritual but rather the banal - Burma Shave and Wall Drug.
But what really seems so missing from this silliness is the relational. Jesus Christ is the clear divide between the Old and the New Convenant. A person, a man, God incarnate. God's chosen form of communication in this latter age is not word, but person, not media, fleshy medium, and through the atoning acts of the Cross and the Resurrection, Christ enables our indwelling by the very Spirit Himself, making us that fleshy medium. Can such be communicated through a road sign?
The gospel can never fully be communicated through anything other than our lives, transformed, renewed, and abundant. We cannot send messages, only messengers. And send we must. Go out into the world and communicate the gospel, with your very life.
Related Tags: road signs, gospel, church, evangelism, ministry
