Mark Driscoll in Cape Town

To anyone around Cape  Town in March. This is really worth considering.

Is your Church a Religious cushion?

I came across this post Is your Church a Religious cushion by Scott Thomas, Director of the Acts 29 Network.

To Quote the article directly,

Jack Miller was the director of World Harvest Mission and pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia and professor at Westminster. In his book, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church (one of the best books I have read in a while), Jack described the church as a “Religious Cushion.” He characterized the religious cushion church:

1. Resembling a retreat center,
2. Practically being fellowship-driven and not mission-driven,
3. Consumer congregants demanding worship as a separate dish ordered aside from the mandate of making disciples,
4. Preachers without the courage to confront the missional apathy of the church, and
5. A church only doing missions in far away lands.

As we make disciples, we lead them to be Spirit-led followers of Jesus who are life-long learners, obedient to Jesus and who are then making disciples of all nations who make disciples. It’s lather, rinse, repeat.

As a missional leader, you have the responsibility to continually remind the people of your gathering to go into the Lord’s harvest fields. Like Jesus, you have to continually point them to the gospel message of redemption through a sent people. As a band of missionaries, you have to engage the lost, not as a means to build your church, but to follow the mandate of Jesus, the One sent by God to seek and to save the lost for the glory of God.

C.H. Spurgeon said, “You do not love the Lord at all if you do not love the souls of men.” [John Blanchard, Gathered Gold (London: Evangelical Press, 1984), 299.] The people in the churches where I was pastor quickly strayed away from the harvest like a runaway criminal on the chain gang. They wanted to work on the building, have fellowship dinners, potlucks, and men’s breakfasts. They wanted to read books, sing songs—as long as it was in the style they preferred—and start programs for their own kids. MOPS, AWANA, VBS, BSF and home school CO-OP. Whatever kept them away from S-I-N-N-E-R-S.

Jack Miller calls this missional leader the “Pacesetting Pastor.” A pacesetter, according to Miller, is a runner who moves ahead of the pack and sets the example that gets others moving. This is not a comfortable position unless you are called to make disciples of all nations and you are called to lead a group of believers to be radical followers of His mission. The pacesetting pastor keeps the mission of Jesus as the focus of the gathered community. I like “A United Gospel Community on Mission to all people for the glory of God” as a slogan. It is simple, understandable and easily remembered. A pacesetting pastor cannot let the mission become an elective of the church. Most of all, the pacesetting pastor cannot be sucked back into the pack and lose the influential role as the leader of the mission.

Gospel Familiarity Breeds Missional Contempt

This article by church planting novice called Gospel Familiarity Breeds Missional Contempt nails an issue I have been wrestling with and  thinking through in terms of more traditional church setups. For so long struggling to understand how a church can be sitting in missional neutral mode with very few members excited about mission or even spreading the gospel over itself. The rabbit hole goes very very deep in this articel as it expresses the concern that a mere familiarity with the gospel and a past conversion experience may not be a true conversion as the gospel has not dug deep under the surface of a persons heart and life. This really stuck out for me from the article.

“There are many people who believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. They know that the story of Christ can be found in the Gospels of the New Testament. They know that belief in that Jesus can get you to heaven and out of hell. They know where to find that message preached. They may even “attend” a church, repeat the catchwords of grace, but have very little understanding of the gospel of grace. They have become too familiar with the gospel.”

“When we are too familiar with the gospel, we scorn the church and her mission. If we don’t need the gospel every day, then why spend time with the church or attempt to advance the good news through mission? Lovelace writes:

Thus their pharisaism defends them both against full involvement in the church’s mission and against full subjection of their inner lives to the authority of Christ.

Familiarity with the gospel breeds missional contempt. If we know the gospel as a set of spiritual facts and a code of morality, then we have very little use for the Church and her mission, the community and evangelism. But if the Gospel is deeper and more honest than we have imagined, then we must be desperate for more. More gospel talk from our friends, more gospel community from church, more gospel songs with fellow saints, and more gospel news for our neighbors. If the gospel is this great, then is must be shared.”

This article shook me up because what I originally perceived as a possible stagnation in the life of a church may in fact be a large makeup of unconverted people wearing the “Christian costume” terrifyingly thinking that they are what constitutes a Christian. An unconverted pharisaic heart will push a person from involvment in spreading the gospel as well push them from wanting the gospel to water their own heart. Thus real christian community is never achieved or even desired.