From the blog of Rev Dr Doug Skinner, Sr Pastor Northway Christian So, I wonder, could our general hesitance to be evangelistic as a church be rooted in a corporate temperament of introversion? Ask yourself: “What do I like most about being a Disciple?” Your first answer is probably weekly communion. And the way you like to take communion is without a lot of commotion and distractions. You’ve made it abundantly clear to us that as a church you don’t want a lot of noise, singing or movement during the Lord’s Supper. You want to be able to sit quietly with Jesus Christ during communion. That’s communion for introverts. The second thing you probably like most about being a Disciple is that nobody is going to tell you what to think or how to behave. It’s not that either belief or behavior is unimportant to you that makes you not want to have anybody interfering with it, but rather because it does matter to you so much! A traditional Baptist notion that resonates well with most Disciples is something called “soul competency.” “Soul Competency” says that we all have to do our own believing. Nobody else can do our believing for us, we will all have to answer for ourselves (Romans 14:4; I Corinthians 3:10-15; 2 Corinthians 5:10) and therefore, we exercise extreme caution in telling others about what they must think, or how they must feel, or what they must do. This is a conscious and conscientious approach that we take as Disciples, but we’d best admit it, it is a heartfelt conviction that encourages a kind of spiritual introversion. Finally, I suspect that you like being a Disciple because our focus is not on a church but on the Christ. There was a recent advertisement campaign for a church here in Dallas that promoted itself as “a church you can believe in.” I had a visceral negative reaction to it. You see, I don’t believe in a church, I believe in Christ. Believing in a church is idolatrous, and a lousy substitute for God at that. Every church I know needs a Savior, and our traditional Disciple perspective that nothing should get in the way of knowing Jesus Christ who is the Savior, and making Him known, has resulted in our spiritual reluctant to make “our” church the content of our own proclamation, the focus of our message. But I wonder, has our hesitation to talk too much about the church lest it get confused with the Christ had the unintended consequence of us not talking about anything at all, not even Christ? There is a principled introversion that is born of the fear of sending mixed messages, of giving people the impression that we, a church, is what they need when it is really the Christ that they need. And while we as Disciples have generally avoided making this mistake, I have to wonder if we haven’t driven the car into the ditch on the other side of the road, using this principled introversion about the promotion of the church as our excuse for not talking about the Christ either.
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 20:22:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015