When will we learn that much of what the American church is doing is not producing true disciples according to the JESUS pattern?
I'm doing my best not to move into the same 'ole rhetoric these days about method and practice. We keep rehashing conversations about institutional church vs. organic house church vs mega church. Why do we keep putting the cart before the horse?
We keep painting and decorating the cart, but a sick horse can never pull the cart. We keep building a better mouse trap, but the cheese we are offering is toxic. In an effort to attract people, we change our venue meeting form. We change our mechanics. We keep rehashing our methods and practices. But still we come up short in actually producing disciples. What is the root problem and sure solution?
Decades of bad cheese wrapped up in old theologies keep us bound, because that is a much bigger nut to crack. The new American gospel of self has failed us miserably. Let's face the reality - much of the Western Church worships mammon. Materialism has us by the throat. We are choking on toxic cheese. Yet we keep finding new ways to deliver the bad cheese. The only solution is to pick up the axe and sharpen it. The axe must be laid to the root, not the fruit! What do I mean by that?
In general, American Christianity has a difficult time accepting the paradox that life comes out of death, glory comes from suffering, and fulness comes out of emptiness. We just don't want to die! We don't even want to preach it. The message of crucifixion is not popular and doesn't sell, and just doesn't draw the crowds. Driving down the same old theological popularity highway is getting us nowhere. The hyper-grace, best-life now, self-help gospel, and skin deep love message is a dead end.
In the way of analogy, if you have water in your low octane gasoline, you can drive a perfectly tuned and perfectly detailed 2023 Lamborghini, and you will end up on the side of the road next to the guy who was driving a perfectly tuned 2002 Mercury Milan using the same gasoline. Both will go nowhere. It's the message that must first change!
We have heard a defective gospel of another Jesus that has produced faulty conversions for so long that it has blinded our discernment for the real (The Real Series). Get this four book series we are offering for Christmas.
I will continue blogging on this theme for a few weeks. It's some of the greatest sanctifying pristine truth the Holy Spirit has ever given me. Readers have testified of its transforming power that its had on their lives and how difficult it was to put down once they started reading it.
To be continued...
