Saturday, May 16, 2009

Doing it all wrong?


Christian musician, Shaun Groves, posed a question on his blog: "Our Witness?" which begins with a picture of a third world pastor with the caption "This guy is doing it all wrong" and then continues with picture after picture of the work begin done in third world churches and contrasts it with our model of a successful church.

And Dan Dick wonders if the church (specifically the UM Church) is suffering from theological root rot with our practical theology (such as that pictured so well at work in third world countries in Shaun Groves blog) disconnected from our philosophical and historical theology.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who is at work in the trenches of the projects of Nashville and we were talking about the command that we make disciples and how so much of what we do is TALK about our faith rather than living it.

Shaun Groves challenging blog reminds us of the need to DO what we say we believe, but Dan Dick's reminds us of the importance of thinking about WHY we do it.

For those in the local church, how do we balance both--especially when the majority of our congregants are not especially committed to thinking about why we do what we do or doing anything other than show up on Sunday morning from time to time? (Let me just add how thankful I am for the faithful for whom that statement does not fit at all!!!)

1 comment:

Hillary @ The Other Mama said...

This is so true and thoughtful. Today in SS we talked about our influence and how the church measures it's success. It just so happens to be the complete opposite of Jesus's method, so that was a nice little wake up call, huh? Great thoughts...