11.09.2009

Timothy Kellar writes, "In every case where Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (luke 7), a religious person and a racial outcast (john 3-4) or a religious person and a political outcast (luke 19),  the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the religious one does not....  Jesus's teachings consistently attracted the irreligous while offending the bible-believing, religious people of his day.  However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect.  The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.  We tend to draw conservative buttoned-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church.  That can only mean one thing.  If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.."

i wonder how you feel reading this?  i read it and i wonder if it's not right when we look at a huge number of people who have left the church and the easier way is to put the onus of responsibility on them for leaving.  maybe they just can't understand how the church can preach the gospel and say that we are a reflection of Jesus Christ but when they read the gospels and when they see what Jesus did for people that didn't belong, they wonder why everyone acts like the older brother in the story about the father and two sons.  i know there's two sides of the coin, i've been on both.  i know this is why i left and i know that part of it was on me... and i know from meeting people in places like clubs, at work, at concerts and travelling across the country the last few years that have left the church that yes it is their choice to leave, but there's another part that isn't their choice.  Maybe we aren't preaching in our churches the same message Jesus had, what's your take?


posted by SilQ @ 3:46 PM

1 Comments:

At 11/10/2009 12:38 AM , Blogger *andi* said...

I think we might be preaching it...but we're not living it. We collect the teachings and file them away in our brains as if to quench the thirst for more knowledge...but mere knowledge does not transform lives if it does not grip our hearts and compel us to do something different, something more Christ-like, something uncomfortable. My $0.02.

 

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