One of my passions
I was reading Tim Stevens blog this morning and he has a great post about church and culture and comparing it to travel . He mentioned that many people argue with him about the creativitiy in his church and why do they (granger community church) take so much effort, time and money to engage the congregation using culture on a sunday morning (or any of their 6 services). He mentions that he gets a lot of comments from pastors who blast him. They say, “Isn’t the Bible enough?” Or, “You should just be able to quote Scripture and people will come.” Here’s his response – what do you think?
No, the Bible isn’t enough. It wasn’t for Jesus. He quoted from Scripture, but then added stories and pulled in examples that his culture would relate to. It wasn’t for Paul either. He quoted from Scripture–and from secular philosophers and poets.
If we are going to help people understand the Bible and fall in love with Jesus, we’ll need to do it in a way they can understand…and that doesn’t require them (non-believers) to do all the work
This quote meets me where I’m at. The first line “No, the bible isn’t enough” will get some peoples feathers in a knot (I guarentee it) but I think that line isn’t the focus.
He wasn’t saying that the bible isn’t God word or isn’t powerful. We know that scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. We know that it is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. But if someone really believes the bible is enough, then they should ONLY read from scripture from stage and say nothing!
What I loved about his quote is that he mentioned that we need to communicate scripture in a way people (unbelievers and believers) will understand. You would think this is an easy thing to do but it’s not. Too many pastors and churches assume that most people in the congregation have an understanding of what is going on in scripture, which is untrue. They make huge assumptions that Joe knows who Paul is or where the book of 1 Timothy is found. The point of a communicator on stage is to explain scripture because it doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. Once someone starts to see the relevance it has on their own life, they will be motivated to read it more on their own and come up with their own questions.
The greatest speakers I know make scripture understandable. A great church tries to explain scripture to all who attend, not just the one’s who want the “deep” content (that’s a whole other topic I’ll rant on one day).
The title I have today is called “one of my passions”. A passion of mine is to take God’s word and make it understandable. My desire is to share who Jesus is and I want people to fall in love with Him. I want the churches I’m involved in to take all efforts to make this a reality. Hopefully this is happening.
December 5, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Bang on, brother. Let me affirm you…God has gifted and blessed you to communicate the truths of himself clearly, articulately, relevantly, and powerfully.
You’re pretty rad too.
December 6, 2007 at 12:58 am
Excellent points Brad! Jesus didn’t just meet the people within a religious liturgical frame work. Rather he met with them “face to face” in a context defined by a personal relationship. I love the beauty in which that relationship blossoms as an individual is willing to engage the word within their own lives and the meaning it brings to them!
Take for example the calling of Peter and Andrew to be disciples. What if Jesus said, “Come with me and I will make you great theologians.”? They probably would have laughed at him and walked away. Instead Jesus relationally engaged them by going fishing with them and then afterwards he says, “Come with me and I will make you fishers of men!”
Is the Bible enough? I agree that on one hand the embodiment (Incarnation) of the man we know as Jesus in the gospels comes from a relational, contextual, and deeply personal interaction which we have with him through the practice of holistic spirituality and God’s word. It is definitely something more then just the Bible. However, something which has been bothering me lately is the question of whether certain groups or individuals might take that too far. How do we avoid our faith from becoming a conceptualized ideology (ultimately leading to idolatry)?
I have been reading Bob Goudzwaard’s book ‘Hope in Troubled Times’ and he has been spelling out six phases which most ideologies go through. In short: Conception, actualization, (re)construction, domination, terror, and dissolution. His point is directed towards world crises situations such as human rights, environmentalism, ecological issues, and economy. However, my problem arose in that while reading it I began to get a picture of the church and its role as an ideology! Has the church become so enamored by its need for liturgical practices that it has conformed to the realities of a human ideology rather then the truly intended Kingdom of God? And if so, what can we offer as followers of Jesus which can replace that ideology? I need to spend some time blogging on this myself I think!
I need to be honest with you Brad. I realize your intentions with regards to the practices of the “average laymen” reading scripture but, I disagree with your summery. In some cases yes, we need to remain grounded with the historical implications of scripture interpretation however, many “new believers” have profound insights on its meanings and practices and we need to do whatever it takes to encourage the exploration and dialogue of those relationships (check out our core values at ‘Expressions’).
Let me tell you where I’m coming from before you end up judging me too quickly. Unfortunately, to often many people end up getting plugged into a church pew where they are generally indoctrinated with church “garbledy goop” and as a result draw fairly solid borders between that which is sacred (anything related to the church) and that which is deemed secular (my everyday job, family life, friends, and daily life practices). We can preach unity all we want but unfortunately this divide of sacred and secular continue to exist and in some cases grow wider. There is little engagement with God’s word because one, it has little to no relevance to my daily life and two, isn’t that your job? We need to bring the two closer together until we realize that the secular is the sacred and vis versa. I am hoping you don’t label me as a heretic after this!
Anyways, how do we do that? How can we practice the unity of the sacred and the secular? Missional theology and practice brother! But, I’m sure you will get lots of that on the Shapevine link I sent you. You might want to check this article out to:
http://www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=381
Beyond that, maybe you and I can meet up for a cup of coffee some time in the near future. Just give me a call and I hope this didn’t turn into to much of a book for you! Blessings!
December 6, 2007 at 1:10 am
Oh ya, I forgot! What’s up with the uncategorized tags? You and I should go over the fundamentals of blogging and the use of tags! Just kidding Ha, ha!
December 11, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Brad I pray you will never loose your passion for sharing God’s word. God has gifted you with an amazing skill to share His word in such a way that is really comes alive and is so easily understood.
January 2, 2008 at 7:16 am
Brad. That was wonderful. Your passion gets me all crazy about God!!! I just think about this and I’m literally vibrating in my seat. I have to settle down cause the typos are bad but if I type the way I feel about this stuff this post would look like this:
OH MAN bbragd I am so exciyted I jm;can’t even dsttdgsgfjgythjglanfjjshgffdas ahhhhhhhahhhhhhhhh WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO GOD!
I would sure love to share these Rob Bell “sermonettes” with you. They are exactly what you are talking about. I couldn’t agree more. We need to change our ways and get away from the “modern” ways. Even some of the post modern teaching is not relevant anymore.
(You’re so smart you won’t need me to tell you but….it’s still SO cool!)
Here is a fun question. Let me know your answer.
Jesus told us that He was going to prepare a place for us. He told us ‘There will be many rooms in my Father’s house’. And we know that He is coming back right? So He must be talking about Heaven right? We’ll Jesus must be coming to sweep us all away “UP” to this house. Right? The one with all the rooms? Remember?
If you want me to give you what I know about “time” and the “language” let me know
I LOVE finding out about Bible times. Then I can look up Jesus’ words and know exactly what He was talking about.
WOO HOO I’d love to chat to ya about this sometime. It truly makes me excited to reach people!
Keep up the good blogin’ boss.
Regards & Radishes
Cian