An incredible thought…

Our Supreme Freedom is to do what we are, not to do what we want to do.

Jesus had to go through Samaria. (John 4)
Christ compels me…

The commercialization of contemporary evangelism

I tread lightly in this post, because it is a mixture of thoughts from my mental interaction with teaching from Len Sweet, which may be part of a new book he is writing. I don’t want to spoil that, but I do want to think aloud about an idea. And this is out loud thinking, which means that the ideas are not developed well, but are cursory thoughts which need to be fleshed out.

This will precede a possible post on dark and light that will go into greater detail about a topic I will simply introduce in this one, that being the idea of two lights within the scripture.

Jesus is the light of the world. Let your light so shine… There are positive expressions of light within the scripture. The gospel of John, possibly dealing with an early form of gnosticism deals with a dualism, states light is good and dark is evil. But negative views of life also exist. Lucifer is called the “angel of light.” It could be stated, then, that there is lucifer’s light and Christ’s light.

The scriptures are filled with examples of Lucifer’s light. Listen to it careful, it just may shine from you. Lucifer says that you can be God. Lucifer says you can do what you want. Lucifer says take. Lucifer says consume.

Now think of how we speak of evangelism: “Win the lost”. “How many have you won?”

Think of our measuring rods: numbers of members, budgets, how many baptisms, how big…All of this is the language of the consumer.

Could it be that we are focused on the light of lucifer? Success is measured by the fruit of the spirit, not the numbers. Success isn’t measured by how much we consume, but by what is born out of us. Fruit is an expression of death.

Contemporary evangelism has gone commercial and we are reaping the consequences of it. We have truncated the great commission by neglecting the after-effects of Christ conceived within a person. And it is all for the sake of being successful.

What were to happen were the SBC reach it’s goal of 1 million baptisms? Utter chaos! Our churches could not handle the development of the Christ birthed within those people. Nelson Searcy said, as it was told to me, God will not give you what you cannot handle. Why would God bring to your church his most precious creation if you cannot handle them, care for them, love them, and see to their development in faith?

The audit for the church should be the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of faith. It is not numbers.

The sound of school bells

It’s thursday, August 24th. Sunday afternoon, I hop on a silver chariot to the land of Oregon. Thankfully, this American bird I’ll be flying on has first class, which enabled me to use some points to obtain a cozy, comfy seat at the front of the plain. Never mind that the birldy chariot must fly through the land of 10 gallon hats. It’s leather seats, real silverware, and plenty of room.

The assignments are almost completed. Most of the books are read. Thankfully, they didn’t all have to be read when the school bell rings monday. In fact, none of them had to be read. However, I took initiative this summer, allowing me to potentially have time to read come this fall, or more certainly have more time to work on the papers that I will surely be producing.

Thankfully, summer is over and the time has come to meet the old G. Fox. Here’s hoping that Len is Sweet and Dan “nimble” Kimball bring out the best in this old man. Rumor has it that part of our time will include people watching in downtown Portland. Sounds like fun!

How relational is God?

I officially begin my D.Min work in Emerging Culture from George Fox Seminary August 28. 26 days and counting. Trying to prepare myself, I have purchased the books for the class and have begun to read them. One that I am reading this week is entitled Relational Holiness.

Early in the book, the authors are attempting to explain the importance of how relationships in our day-to-day life impact our life, and for the believer our expression of our faith. Relationships are necessary for life, and this postmodern expression of life fits nicely with Christian traditions that speak of the Spirit interacting with our spirit.

They go on to say that in this same vein, God is relational. They state:

…God is also present and acting relationally. No one, including God, is wholly independent or isolated from others. God is not entirely independent, because God is love, and love is expressed in relationships. Relationships require a kind of dependence if they are true relationships.

To exist, of course, God does not depend upon creatures. God was not born and will not die; God does not depend upon others in order to be. Rather, to say that God is dependent is to affirm the relational dependence that love requires. To rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn requires an experiential dependence. A God of love desires and seeks this kind of dependent relation.

God is open to and affected by others, because the Creator and the creatures enjoy mutual relations. To say that these relations are mutual is to say that God interacts with us and we interact with God. Mutuality is not the same as equality, however. God is not another mortal; there are numerous differences between the Creator and the creatures. But the wonder of it all is that the God of the universe enjoys give-and-take relations with every creature who lives.

Our descriptions of God will not and cannot be exhaustive. While Christians believe that some important things can be said about their Maker and Savior, they typically don’t claim to have given a full explanation of what divinity entails. Nevertheless, more and more people believe that the description of God as relational resides at the heart of how best to describe the Lover of us all. And they believe that this description can be enormously helpful in teaching us what it might mean to love one another.

Some of this concerns me. First, to say that God is not entirely independent, seems almost heretical. God is completely independent. And yet completely relational. But that is the beauty of the Trinity. He was completely independent because he is God. He is completely relational in the context of a co-eternal, co-equal expression of the trinity. But God does not depend on us. He is whole and complete without us. Our relationships are modeled after the Trinity. Does God reach out and love us and express that love towards perfectly in the death of Christ on the Cross? Absolutely. But he does not NEED that to have a relationship with us.

Also, to say that “God is open to and affected by others” borders on Open Theism. God cannot love us any more than he already does. The perfect expression of His love for us, again, is found in the cross. God does not change his mind. He can’t. His sovereignty doesn’t allow it. He knows all, when it will happen, how it will happen, and what our role in the events will be. We may touch his heart through our prayers, devotion and obedience to Him, but he is not in shock and awe about what or how we do things.

Does that mean he doesn’t understand us, or express love to us in ways specific and special to us and our make up and personality? No. I believe he knows exactly how to show love to us that is unique to us.

What think ye? Did I misunderstand the written text? How relational is God?