Sayers states:
Many Christians, particularly young adults find themselves struggling with an identity crisis when it comes to their faith. This is one of the main reasons so many young adults are leaving faith in the West. Being a Christian who is serious about faith carries no social currency in our culture, in fact it is likely to harm your social standing. To be a Christian who is open about your faith requires quite a bit of strength of character. So when many young adults hear about the idea of incarnational mission, without realizing it they see it as a way of resolving the social isolation they feel as a follower of Christ. The incarnational approach then becomes an excuse or an escape clause in which we can limit the differences between us and those who would not classify themselves as followers of Christ in order to lessen the strain on our social standing. Sadly, often in the process the idea of holiness gets dumped and the missional purpose of the incarnational approach gets neutered.
He also quotes Erika Haub from here.
I think if there were one thing I would want us to remember today as we consider all things missional, it would be that as we talk about incarnational living and incarnational ministries and being incarnational wherever we live, we are talking about a way of life that leads to the cross. It did for Jesus, and if I read Philippians correctly, it should for us as well.
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