style in ministry

Vince pointed me to some interesting video clips promoting John Piper's upcoming conference titled, "Above All Earthly Powers: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World". Of particular interest is Mark Driscoll's Style in Ministry.

This was timely since I just commented on a paper titled "The Emerging Church". I found the author of this paper had made some excellent critiques but unfortunately he missed the point of those he was critiquing.

For example, the author takes issue with this Brian McLaren quote, "Although I don't hope all Buddhists will become (cultural) Christians, I do hope all who feel so called will become Buddhist followers of Jesus; I believe they should be given that opportunity and invitation. I don't hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus."

He tells us that this makes it clear that the emergent community is not in the Kingdom of God nor the church. Interesting. I can see how he gets there if he ignores the word "cultural" and its implication in the quoted text but since it is in there, I'm not sure why he would.

McLaren is rightfully saying that cultures are shaped by religions and people can come to Christ in the context of their culture. He did not say they can be both followers of Buddha and of Jesus. I can remain a cultural baby boomer and follow Christ while someone else can be a cultural cowboy and also follow Christ.

I liked how Driscoll mentioned this same concept in the video; one can remain a cultural "Seattlite" and still be a Christian.

The author makes a similar mistake regarding a Rob Bell quote; "For Jesus, the question wasn't how do I get into Heaven? but how do I bring heaven here? ... The goal isn't escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to. And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work."

Depending on context, this can be untrue or it can be a very powerful Biblical truth. Jesus brought the Kingdom of God to the Jewish world. The Church is now doing the same to all nations. This notion is aligned with a recent Pyromaniacs post. The Pyromaniac post's only shortcoming was its limited scope. The power of God breaks into all areas of our lives and is not limited to spiritual redemption. God is demonstrating His power over all effects of the fall.

Ok - I've drifted. The point is that God is not pulling us out of our culture. He is crashing into it with His Kingdom. He is changing lives and then working through them to transform the culture from within. We have too many great Bible teachers fighting this notion.

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