bible.org: What Must Change Now

This post is from the defunct blog “Dying Church”

bible.org: What Must Change Now:

We know what the target is not, it is not the conditions and results that we now have. Another philosopher, a former Baptist from Missouri, Dallas Willard has said that our current system is perfectly designed to give us the results we are now getting. Some of that current system is;

1. Worship as performance,
2. Leadership as celebrity,
3. Greatness measured by numbers,
4. Salvation by agreement with religious facts,
5. Evangelism without incarnation,
6. Discipleship as optional,
7. Catering to consumer mentality,

and I could go on. All this could be the result of the Gospel we advance. I am not adverse to Brian McLaren’s muse; “ It will serve the church if we spend the next 15-20 years asking the question, ‘ what is the gospel?’ So what is a different system that would give us different results? That would give us

1. Worship as a heartfelt answer to God,
2. Leadership as humble service,
3. Greatness measured by character,
4. Salvation by a decision to follow Jesus,
5. Evangelism as love,
6. Discipleship as normative,
7. Catering to the committed.