Friday, March 09, 2007
What We Do To Language
MMI carried a post a while back entitles "Attractional AND Incarnational" Look, I more or less agree wthe the guy's point, and yet I found the post annoying. Consider:
One of the things that always gets to me is that Christians are not supposed to be from another world, we are supposed to be better at this world. The goal here is not to set up some sort of alternative existence that appears alien right down to the bizarro vocabulary. Rather, the goal is to set up existence that is as God created it. We are fallen, we are not deported.
Which leads me to the real bottom line of my annoyance. Incarnational ministry is a phrase dear to me from my Young Life days, but it means much more that just "go to them" Is God's incarnation simply about God coming to us? Heavens no! It is about God being with us, dwelling here. Incarnational ministry is not about "going out" - it's about who we are while we are out.
God had been going out since creation before Christ, He Himseff wrestled with Jacob, there were angels and emissaries, prophets and priests galore in the Old Testament. Christ was not about going out, Christ was about being God. The trick to incarnational ministry is not going out, but about allowing ourselves to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, so that when we are out, God is apparent.
When properly done, "incarnational" ministry meets both goals of the church, it works on those of us that are already a part, because we are struggling to be more Christ-like, and it seeks to add to the Kingdom.
Which brings me back to the language issue. Proper incarcational ministry is attractive, because as we become more Christ-like, we should be more attractive. Furthermore, as we are more Christlike, we will not need to invent vocabulary to sound "churchy" we simply will be "churchy" and our words will ring with an entirely different sound.
Related Tags: attractional, incarnational, transformation, Christ-like, ministry
There is a huge debate right now among younger church leaders on whether the calling of the church is to be attractional (“come to us”) or incarnational (“go to them”).Annoying because why can't we just say "come to us" and "go to them"? Why do we have to invent what frankly sound like invented words to communicate such a simple idea?
One of the things that always gets to me is that Christians are not supposed to be from another world, we are supposed to be better at this world. The goal here is not to set up some sort of alternative existence that appears alien right down to the bizarro vocabulary. Rather, the goal is to set up existence that is as God created it. We are fallen, we are not deported.
Which leads me to the real bottom line of my annoyance. Incarnational ministry is a phrase dear to me from my Young Life days, but it means much more that just "go to them" Is God's incarnation simply about God coming to us? Heavens no! It is about God being with us, dwelling here. Incarnational ministry is not about "going out" - it's about who we are while we are out.
God had been going out since creation before Christ, He Himseff wrestled with Jacob, there were angels and emissaries, prophets and priests galore in the Old Testament. Christ was not about going out, Christ was about being God. The trick to incarnational ministry is not going out, but about allowing ourselves to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, so that when we are out, God is apparent.
When properly done, "incarnational" ministry meets both goals of the church, it works on those of us that are already a part, because we are struggling to be more Christ-like, and it seeks to add to the Kingdom.
Which brings me back to the language issue. Proper incarcational ministry is attractive, because as we become more Christ-like, we should be more attractive. Furthermore, as we are more Christlike, we will not need to invent vocabulary to sound "churchy" we simply will be "churchy" and our words will ring with an entirely different sound.
Related Tags: attractional, incarnational, transformation, Christ-like, ministry
