Dessus

Retenir l'evangile ?

Écrit par Mark Van Steenwyk : 30 mars 2005

Il me semble que chaque église place des contraintes sur la façon dont elles communiquent l'Evangile-quelque bon, du mauvais. Par exemple, la plupart des églises ne s'engageront pas dans des pratiques d'une manière flagrante non conformistes d'obliger des personnes à écouter une présentation de l'evangile. Nous savons intuitivement qu'il est erroné de s'engager dans la pratique du culte connu sous le nom d'échanger « de petits pêcheurs flirty » - des rapports sexuels avec la promesse de la conversion.

Quelques églises ont placé les contraintes excessives sur la façon dont elles communiquent l'evangile. Beaucoup d'églises dans toute l'histoire américaine ont pas l'allowe les « gens de couleur » à venir entendent l'evangile dans leurs églises. En outre, il y a eu des prédicateurs qui ont étiqueté sur beaucoup de retraints moraux supplémentaires sur leur présentation de l'evangile « ne fument pas, ne boivent pas, ou ne mâchent pas, ou les filles de date qui… »

Une des impulsions de conduite de l'approche chercheur-sensible est d'enlever autant de contraintes comme possible, de sorte que les gens le trouvent aussi facile comme possible d'entendre l'evangile. Hors de cette impulsion, l'approche chercheur-sensible préconise ce qui suit :

  • Les gens n'aiment pas croiser ethnique ou ne classent pas des lignes, et ne sont pas beaucoup pour répondre à l'evangile s'ils ne doivent pas croiser de telles lignes…, donc ayons l'église qui est concentrée sur un détail démographique.
  • Les gens n'aiment pas avoir l'evangile « poussé » sur eux. Rendons-le aussi facile que possible pour qu'ils viennent à nous s'ils veulent à, où ils peuvent entendre qu'une présentation simple, claire, concise de l'evangile (ou ce que nous pensons est l'evangile), et permettez-alors leur de faire leurs propres choix.
  • Choses de confiance de personnes qui semblent professionnelles. Let’s have our meetings be as professional as possible, so that people can have trust in what we say. Let’s remove the barrier of mediocrity. We know that God can work through humble means, but why use humble means if excellence is at our disposal?

Are these valid examples of removing restraints? I don’t think so. If we read the Gospels, we see that Christ challenges all three of these notions. Paul also challenges all three. I think that we have so refined our definition of the Gospel (it is a set of relatively simple propositions, that once agreed upon, open up a doorway to a relationship with God the father), that we’ve felt the liberty to peel away things that we consider to be secondary–ethnic reconcilliation, the centrality of discipleship, how we spend our money, the manner in which the Gospel is presented, etc. I think it is time that we re-examine the retraints that the Gospel demands. I know that we should avoid putting extras on the Gospel, but I’m unconvinced that most Evangelicals really know what the Gospel is. Sure, there are snazzy statements in Scripture that seem to indicate that the Gospel can be boiled down to one key idea. But, oddly enough, not all of those statements speak of the same idea. Its as though those guys were talking about a mult-faceted Gospel or something.

for further reading . . .

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Comments

6 Responses to “Restraining the Gospel?”

  1. pat k on March 30th, 2005 11:33 am

    A multi-faceted gospel?! What the…?!

  2. Van S on March 30th, 2005 12:05 pm

    :o

  3. Anonymous on March 31st, 2005 8:15 pm

    theologica.blogspot.com began a discussion titled “Should all Churches be Multiracial?” based off a recent article by Christianity Today. Divergent responses follow.

  4. bryan on April 1st, 2005 12:02 am

    interesting food for thought. I have a story about this that I’ll post later. For now, it’s off to bed.

  5. david on April 1st, 2005 8:22 am

    i typically just stalk blogs and make no comments, but i really appreciate this. the question then is, “now what?” how do we fix this problem without simply creating “new niche” churches?

  6. Aaron on May 2nd, 2005 8:11 pm

    Michelle Marschel referred me to your site. I thought you might find this excerpt of interest. It’s from Mark Driscoll’s book Radical Reformission. You might like the book, it’s very interesting. I’d recommend it.

    In ninety nations, people spend less each year than we in the United States spend on our garbage bags.

    Each year more Americans declare bankruptcy than graduate from college

    We have twice as many malls as high schools.

    We spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches than on higher education

    Our supermarkets have 250 percent more items than they did twenty years ago.

    Parents spend six hours shopping each week, and fourty minutes playing with their children.

    Only one-fourth of shoppers have a particular purchase in mind when they go to the mall

    Seventy percent of Americans visit a mall each week; that’s more than visit houses of worship

    The assumption that everyone is a customer to be marketed is a great pitfall for those who proclaim the gospel, because we tend to cast God as a product, and as mainstream a product as possible. After all, scriptural teaching about the curse, death as the wages of sin, the flooding of the earth, the killing of Egyptian babies, the slaughter of erverts in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fiery torments of hell is a tough sell even for the best of marketing firms.

    Yet today everything from sex to Jesus is pimped, since some preachers have traded in prophecy for pandering. Meanwhile, people have become so seasoned from the years of direct mail, online pop-up ads, commercials, and the endless parade of advertising on everything from billboards to ball caps that they tend to view the church as just another business and the preacher as yet another huckster.
    The Radical Reformission, Mark Driscoll. (p.170-171)

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