Critical Question Two: Connecting with Lost
How do we approach a city?
How do we not just look for individual conversions but group conversions? (not just see one but 200 ---see blog down below on organic church stuff)
Where do we start?
How do we connect them with one another (if web-based methods are used at all) and/or an appropriate local body?
Keep in mind: Keep Christ His Life, Resurection, the teachings of the Kingdom central...dont use cheap ploys on political issues or evolution,homosexuality, etc to draw a crowd...these can be distracting....or at least not where I feel that I want to invest my time being a catalyst for debate.
Keep it simple.
How do we not just look for individual conversions but group conversions? (not just see one but 200 ---see blog down below on organic church stuff)
Where do we start?
How do we connect them with one another (if web-based methods are used at all) and/or an appropriate local body?
Keep in mind: Keep Christ His Life, Resurection, the teachings of the Kingdom central...dont use cheap ploys on political issues or evolution,homosexuality, etc to draw a crowd...these can be distracting....or at least not where I feel that I want to invest my time being a catalyst for debate.
Keep it simple.
posted by Melinda at
1:51 PM
3 Comments:
Okay Melinda, here's the longest comment you've ever had:
I'm going to comment chronologically from "What is a Movement?" up to the present one, so bear with me:
Maybe you can help me with this, but sometimes I feel like "movements" as we define it is somehow less than what I see as our role as the body of Christ in the world. I wish I could fully articulate it, but a few things that I have noticed is the narrow definition we seem to give to evangelism and discipleship that stresses verbally explaning atonement and justification by faith with a view to conversion (on these terms) and growing in one's personal devotional life and character. Of course, I think these thinks are incredibly important, but there is more, and I think it has to do with God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven and "being the Gospel" in tandem with "sharing the Gospel". Does that make sense?
I was very glad to see "next steps" here, because I was just thinking this morning about the need to discuss that. Would we need to have a new kind of strategy and new materials with which to work from? I think so. I think they would need to be simple, and not necessarily on paper. I agree that the stories of the Bible are central, both the smaller narratives and the metanarrative itself, though that would be difficult for a "po-mo" to accept. But, it is an essential aspect of being a disciple of Christ to see yourself within the metanarrative of Scripture, as the next part of God's story and redemptive activity in His creation. I think that sort of understanding would help people past the dichotomy of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The separation has been too long; they need to get back together! (marriage analogy intended...)
About the first critical question, I like the idea of a team of people working out of their giftings, but I do see the need for a leader of some sort, if not just for the purposes of oversight and reporting. I'm not exactly sure what you're thinking about the evaluation aspect. Maybe you can help me out with that. As far as the scope of the team, local, national, or global, I don't really care because one would have to start locally or else get lost in the scope of the thing.
On question two, when you say group conversions, do you mean Billy Graham style (or Peter at Pentecost style, for that matter) or something else? I think the "Billy" style is great, but I'll put my vote in for the "something else" if that's an option... :) I like what you say about connecting people, believers or otherwise, to each other and/or a local body of believers. Even if it was for the purpose of beginning a new part of the Body separate from some established local church, the connection should be really helpful, probably necessary (hopefully...). Yes, we should keep the main issue the main issue, Jesus and the kingdom of God, but I don't want to exclude discussion of current issues from discussion of the Kingdom, because God's kingdom should extend into every part of society. But, I don't think you meant the opposite of that; so, I'm just putting that out there. Lastly, I kinda lean towards an ultra-relational model of launching movements and stuff like that. I haven't really tested it too much, so it may not work very well, but I would like to just enter a city, meet people in the context of their normal lives, plant the seeds of kingdom building, and then be there to reap the harvest and cultivate the crop for reproduction that God brings about. I like the idea of including local church bodies in that too. In my experience so far, this seems vague to most crusaders, but I like it. Maybe it will make sense to you... :) I'm sure it needs tweaking.
And, lastly, not related to any blog entry in particular, I'd like to put this out there: in contextuallizing for all the post-moderns out there, I'd like to make sure that we do not let those that come to Christ remain within some of the trappings of post-modernism. Of course, it would be a tragedy for them to then move back into the trappings of modernity, or even the pre-modern times, but there is a way in which we incarnate Jesus within our culture and out the other side, just as He did in His own first century Jewish culture. I think the idea of being a redeemed post-modern should mean something fundamentally different than that of just being a post-modern in general, and it should express itself in ways that go against the grain of many post-modern assumptions, just as being a redeemed modern should answer all that the Enlightenment tried to do away with. I guess it goes back to the question, how does one be in the post-modern culture, even a product of it, just as Jesus was as a first century Jew, and yet not be "of" it like He described. Again, the key seems to be Jesus, his life as described in New Testament and his life worked out in us through the Holy Spirit. Okay, problem solved. Now we can do it... ;)
Oh, I forgot to add: let me know what you think! :)
Group conversions ...not Billy G style but meaning that if one person's life is truly...for real...transformed by the gospel of the Kingdom that Christ taught...and of course a relationship with him being the beginning of entering into that....then people's natural, realtional networks will be transformed..more organically - see the link to the church planting thing way back.
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