I have a new post at For The Church every Monday. Here’s a snippet from today’s entry, “Is Your Gospel an Urban Legend?”:
A church plasters the word grace everywhere but the substance of that word has not quite sunk down into the bloodstream. The pastor preaches on the gospel. The people read a lot of gospely books. They brand all their programming and resources with the word “gospel” and “grace.” And the message starts to attract messy people, sinners of all kinds, because that’s what happens when a message of grace is faithfully proclaimed. But the members aren’t really welcoming. They really treasure their own comfort. They value their preferences. They want their church to grow — until it does. And then it changes and change is disruptive, inconvenient. An “us vs. them” mentality creeps in, and eventually the new people start to creep away. Why?
The message of grace requires a culture of grace to make it look credible. In other words, you can un-say with your life what you’re saying with your mouth.
Tim Keller talks about what happens when the gospel is on audio but the world is on video. It is hard for the message to compete if everything around us is screaming the exact opposite.
So how about you? Is your gospel credible? Do you talk a big game about it but treat others like that’s all it is — a game?
Does your gospel sound like an urban legend? Something you like to repeat but doesn’t quite sound true? Is it just a curiosity to you, a message of interest but not of impact?
Read the whole thing.
