I was reading this morning in Psalm 34 and I came across a familiar verse that says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."
I've been doing a lot of thinking, reading, reviewing, praying through and processing since the Blossom conference last week. One of the main issues that keeps going through my mind is one of stance or posture. I wonder what type of posture the Church has been taking regarding how it views itself in the world? Most Christians that I know or meet recognize that the Church in America isn't very healthy, but what kind of posture have we taken? I remember teaching a study in my home church a few years ago describing "Survival Mode Vs. Thrival Mode." Has the Church in America taken a "Survival Mode" mentality? I truly hope not.
If the Church becomes a castle or a bunker in order to try to ride out the storm of the current culture in the US, we are in a dire situation. Jesus wasn't sent to this earth for the survival of the Church as we know it. God so loved the world, not the church, that He sent His only begotten Son. That includes us, but it also includes a whole bunch of people that aren't in our churches. If we take a posture of survival, we aren't going to be in a position of readiness to go and share, or to follow Christ wherever He leads. After all Jesus said, "If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will save it." (Matthew 10:39)
I'm reading a book called, "The Tangible Kingdom" by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay and in it there is a quote that I want to share with you. It says, "What makes the gospel good news isn't the concept, but the real-life person who has been changed by it." I think we need to take a posture of "taste and see." I truly believe that if the Church could show the world that it is in the business of life transformation (like Jesus is), it wouldn't have to beg people to come. It wouldn't have to figure out ways to get more people in so that the doors of their buildings wouldn't close. Are we inviting people to taste God's goodness, or are we inviting them into our bunker to hide from the moral decay of America? If we are truly "tasting" the Lord, there is no doubt that we will see His goodness. If that is our posture, our stance, then others might be persuaded to "taste" for themselves too. That is was God's Kingdom is all about. David knew it well. Do we?
Blessings,
Shiloh
2 comments:
The posture of the church is to love. This posture is not what the world despises. The purity of this love is what culture will not tolerate. (namely, that we are all sinful, lost, and dependent upon Christ.)
Against popular mood, I don't consider it the role of the church to be tolerated or to be viewed any less intolerable to the world. If our message is true, the "world" will neither embrace it, nor could they--"for it is foolishness to them."
It is not an emergency that we experience resistance. It is an emergency that we are so uncomfortable with the resistance, that it causes us to accommodate.
Literally, we don't beg the world to come to "church." God gives those of His choosing to Christ to be His Bride. In love, the Bride asks Christ to send them into the world.
Emergent advocates sense a genuine crisis in the church because they feel our church ought to be the place where converts are made. There is a widening gap between truth and error. But if the Church is the Body of Christ, we need to be nurtured there in order to "go into the world." It's called being "seeker sensitive." What is ought to be called is "saved and starving."
Christ is the head of His church. (He is the founder, the builder, and sustainer of it) Then there is no need for "survival mode," or calling assemblies to establish a new (Neo), or "generous orthodoxy."
The church can still maintain truth--no matter how narrow, unpopular, and exclusive it is. And no matter how judgmental the church is viewed as being, it is literally of no concern whatsoever to those who are being saved.
As you would agree, the pressure is not on the church to save. The mandate is to love and to lift up Christ as Moses lifted the serpent. Nevermind the building, its doors, budget, offices, and people within them. Our posture is not about Sunday, it's about Monday through Saturday.
Our posture is not about a visible church, but an invisible church.
Thrival is the state of grace, arrived at by acceptance of the gift of God in oneself and manifested by practices of self-nurturance, responsibility for one's own thoughts and the effluents one flows into the blood stream from brain chemistry...as explained further in my book, Thrival! How to Have an Above Average Day Every Day.
Dr. Paul O. Radde
The Thrival Institute
http://www.thrival.com
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