What is, “things that can get in the way of the church ‘being’ the church”? This is a couple of weeks old, but it’s worth reviewing for anyone that hasn’t seen it yet. Dan Kimball offers up some thoughts on the matter, in typical Vintage Faith fashion.
[M]y growing theory of most churches is that when churches become so inwardly focused, we can produce the fruit of knowledgable but usually negative and critical people always pointing out the wrongs in everything. Or when we become so outwardly focused, we can become shallow theologically and produce Christians who barely know the Bible. Or when we become so felt-needs and methodology focused , we can produce consumer Christians who end up depending on which church best meets their needs which produces a bigger and better cycle for the church leaders to deal with. All of these things can produce a people who aren’t seeing themselves as missional Christians being the church throughout the week – but people who have faulty (in my opinion) definitions of church and then they “go to church” for meeting the faulty expectations we have set up for them to define “church” by.
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I am wondering more about what we produce whether house, small, or large church and how we do things and why we do what we do, when there isn’t any biblical basis for most of what we do (in method and style and format). How we define “church” for people by what we do and how it can get in the way of the church being the church. I am very interested in seeing what the “fruit” of our churches is – ingrown and critical, outward and shallow, felt-needs and consumer. Are we creating worshiping, loving, missional Christians who are the church or do we create people who “go to church” and they may not even know any difference.
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