Transitioning, Preferences and Missionality
Jul 27th, 2009 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General Christian, MissionalYou know that I think we need to transition American church culture into a something far more effective in engaging the world around us.
The problem most often faced in the attempt to accomplish this goal is an adherence to individual preferences by those not wishing to change.
The attitude of those desiring to be agents of change, when confronted with this obstacle, is that of disdain, convinced of our own accuracy.
It is common among those pursuing change to decry the attachments to these biases as selfish and sinful when they stand in the way of our goals.
The hypocrisy of it is that many times we are pursuing our own preferences rather than that which will be best received by those to whom we are sent; for whom we claim to lobby.
When moving a church, we need to be honest about our own preferences and be as willing to lay them aside as we expect others to be when it comes to their comforts.
What matters is what communicates. We can’t use one mindset’s failure to communicate as leverage to replace it with another mindset that is equally unable.
It is disingenuous. The result will be a spiralling loss of relevance that makes our current failures look tame in comparison.
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Art,
So very true. We have raised a generation of consumer-minded Christians who come to church with the primary concern of “what’s in this for me?” when in reality the heart of following Christ is, “what can I sacrifice for Him, for the benefit of others?” But even worse, as you say, is when we are blinded by that tendency in ourselves.
Great post.
Gracias.