Wednesday, December 12, 2007
What To Do...What To Do?
I am not a big movement guy. From my perspective, a movement is just a fad writ large. Evangelicalism is certainly showing those signs. There are some facts I simply cannot escape.
- Jesus did not start a movement, He reached out to people
- The Great Commission is not to build a church, it is to make disciples.
Now, those facts do not mean we should not organize in movements or churches, but it does mean we have to spend a great deal of time and energy in keeping those things in proper perspective. What it does mean is that we need to pick up and put down movements and churches as they are useful in meeting the primary goals - creating and maturing disciples.
That last statement does not mean, as Spencer so correctly points out, that we can forget history. We absolutely must build on the knowledge so hard won. But what I am driving at is that is you consider Patton's expanded list, this is 15 out of 18:
Inability to provide effective discipleship to new believers which involves a grounding in the faith both in belief and practice.Unless I am mistaken - that's it, that's the whole purpose for all the rest of it. In placing that in the list as is done here, we place the reason for the movement subordinate to the movement itself. Is that right?
To me the formula is a very simple one. God became a man to touch men. Those men he touched are to touch other, and so forth, until all have been touched, AND CHANGED BY THAT TOUCH. Everything else is a means to that ends.
Look at it this way. I am attempting to drive from LA to NYC. Somewhere in Texas, my car breaks down. I have choices. I can repair the car. I can have someone repair the car for me. I can hitch the rest of the way. I can hop a bus or a plane. I can buy a new car. What should I do? Well, one thing is for certain, I don't spend the next two weeks fiddling with the car, I concern myself primarily with getting to NYC, because that was my original goal. Just because the car broke down, I do not de facto have to fix the car - the car is not the only means of getting to my goal.
Sometimes, I think we would be best served if we remember what we are doing here.
Technorati Tags:evangelicalism, movements, church, goals, purpose
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
