opportunity maximizers

I finally finished Brian McLaren's The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix - bottom line, while it had some nuggets and I had no significant issues with it, I'd put this low on my "Books You Gotta Read" list.

I think both the highlights and lowlights are contained in pages 169-184. The highlight is a list of opportunity maximizers most of which are good and a few are excellent. I recommend reading these.

1. We have to distinguish between genuine Christianity and our versions of it.
2. We need to see truth and goodness where they exist in postmodernism.
3. We need to magnify the importance of faith.
4. We ought to be more fair.
5. We need to be more experiential.
6. We need to address the postmoderns' existential predicament.
7. We need to listen to the postmoderns' stories.
8. We need to tell our stories.
9. We need to address issues we have never even thought about before.
10. We need to avoid coercion and pressure.
11. We need to see the postmoderns in here, out there, and everywhere.
12. We need to use music, literature, drama, and other forms of art to communicate our message.
13. We must believe that the holy Spirit is out there at work.
14. We must become seekers again.
15. We must reassert the value of community and rekindle the experience of it.

The lowlights are contained in a couple of anecdotes McLaren tells.

One day, not long ago, a woman who was a fairly new Christian came to see me in my office. She had developed into one of the best Sunday school teachers in our church; the children relished her energy, enthusiasm, love and creativity. She said, "Brian, I think we have a problem. I think I believe something different from the other teachers. I don't want to cause trouble, so I thought I should talk to you about it."

I thanked her for this uncommon courtesy and asked her what the problem was. She replied, "I think most of the teachers here believe that Jesus is the only way. I have a real problem with that."

Her problem was a classic postmodern dilemma. Resisting the temptation to address the issue of pluralism versus the uniqueness of Christ, I asked another question: "Why is this a problem for you?"

Her answer illustrates one of the delightful paradoxes of postmodernism: "My two best friends are not Christians. There is nothing I want more in my life than for them to discover what I've discovered these last few years. But if I tell them that I believe they are going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus, they will never listen to another word I have to say."

Wow! On the bright side, I see the proper priority of wanting to build a relationship over forcing a truth. However I cannot accept how this led to the questioning of an absolute truth - "that Jesus is the only way. I have a real problem with that".

McLaren points to this as irony and as being a pastoral dilemma. He does not tell us his response to this women but the way he writes does not lead me to believe that he confronted her. It seems that the proper response would be to recognize her dilemma. We should acknowledge that coercing her friends to understand this truth may not be appropriate at this time. But I think as this woman's pastor, he should confront her for her false conclusion and help her be aware that if she really cares for her friends and her Lord, they also at some point will see that truth (either on this side of eternity or the other). Then coach her on how to help them see this fact through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The second one is more theological in nature. I wanted to gloss over it but couldn't resist. In his point that we must believe that the Holy Spirit is at work, McLaren quotes Ni To-sheng (Watchman Nee) from What Shall This Man Do?

I always believe that the Holy Spirit is upon a person when I preach to that person. I do not mean that the Spirit is within the hearts of unbelievers, but that He is outside. What is He doing? He is waiting, waiting to bring Christ into their hearts. He is like the light. Open the window-shutters even a little, and it will flood in and illuminate the interior. Let there be a cry from the heart to God, and at that moment the Spirit will enter and begin His transforming work of conviction and repentance and faith.

Perhaps the biggest condition for success in bringing people to Christ is to remember that the same Holy Spirit, who came to our help in the hour of darkness, is at hand waiting to enter and illumine their hearts also, and to make good the work of salvation to which, in crying to God, they have opened the door.

Nice story. Good conclusion. But wreaks of Armenian theology which runs counter to his point. Who is McLaren and Nee crediting for the opening of the "window-shutters even a little"? Based on the point they are trying to make, if story telling were important, they could have told the story about the power of the Spirit to penetrate even the hardest of hearts to break open those shutters.

Anyway, ok book but definitely not great.

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