a Fiefdom...
I’ve noticed some trends that I would categorize as fiefdom-oriented…
In a fiefdom, there is…
- a fixation on conversion without conversation.
- a preoccupation with death instead of life.
- An afterlife theology void of a during life theology.
- A meanness about it…people are either sad, sour and seething with anger.
- A positioning of pastors that sets them apart as this elite group of untouchables.
- A concentration on Christian community without a consideration of their cultural community.
- A tendency to try to get everyone else to believe the exact same interpretation of God as they have.
- A dead language used that was formed by some holy dispensation of Christianity in the late 60’s, early 70’s.
- Either the feeling a funeral or a revival…it has a hard time existing in the natural rhythms of an ordinary day in the life of a human.
- A killing of time until the rapture…the second coming of Christ seems to negate the glorious incarnate first coming of Christ.
- A weird pleasure found in employing relationally suicidal techniques in sharing their faith.
- An odd desire to dress up for God to show him how special he is to them.
- A love for the epistles all the while slighting the gospels.
- A resistance of story, replacing narrative with nuggets of propositional truth.
- A love for the gospel so long as it doesn’t become social in nature.
- Monopolizing of people’s time with the hyperactivity of the Christian subculture.
- A wholesale lack of recognition that the image of God is found in every human regardless of how religious or irreligious they are.
- A tendency to overuse the war metaphor as the consummate picture of the Kingdom.
- A forgetfulness of Jesus quoted mission found in Isaiah 61…when this is tossed aside, all hell’s breaks loose in the church.
Well…these are just a few thoughts this morning…
In a fiefdom, there is…
- a fixation on conversion without conversation.
- a preoccupation with death instead of life.
- An afterlife theology void of a during life theology.
- A meanness about it…people are either sad, sour and seething with anger.
- A positioning of pastors that sets them apart as this elite group of untouchables.
- A concentration on Christian community without a consideration of their cultural community.
- A tendency to try to get everyone else to believe the exact same interpretation of God as they have.
- A dead language used that was formed by some holy dispensation of Christianity in the late 60’s, early 70’s.
- Either the feeling a funeral or a revival…it has a hard time existing in the natural rhythms of an ordinary day in the life of a human.
- A killing of time until the rapture…the second coming of Christ seems to negate the glorious incarnate first coming of Christ.
- A weird pleasure found in employing relationally suicidal techniques in sharing their faith.
- An odd desire to dress up for God to show him how special he is to them.
- A love for the epistles all the while slighting the gospels.
- A resistance of story, replacing narrative with nuggets of propositional truth.
- A love for the gospel so long as it doesn’t become social in nature.
- Monopolizing of people’s time with the hyperactivity of the Christian subculture.
- A wholesale lack of recognition that the image of God is found in every human regardless of how religious or irreligious they are.
- A tendency to overuse the war metaphor as the consummate picture of the Kingdom.
- A forgetfulness of Jesus quoted mission found in Isaiah 61…when this is tossed aside, all hell’s breaks loose in the church.
Well…these are just a few thoughts this morning…
Comments
I understand one of the speakers at the state evangelism conference at Cedarville this week spoke about many churches having become a subculture that is stuck in the 50's and 60's (in attitudes, appearance, etc.), expecting the lost to come and fit in, when they should be engaging the culture around them. That should be a convicting thought for many of us!
~"God helps us to live the Whole Gospel!"