Reggie McNeal reflects on the amazing growth of the church in other parts of the world and then asks – do we really omen the divx want to see God’s kingdom come in the western world. Its a good question.
He says if we do then “we need to shift from looking at the kingdom thru church lens to looking at the church thru kingdom lens.”
That strikes me as a huge key. As he goes on to say ‘this changes everything!’
This is a great video and well worth a look. He reminds us that our strategic planning and clever ideas are not as important as we sometimes like to think.
A few quotes:
“Is God most at home in the church?”
“Does God look at church stats to see how things are going? Does God really count how many showed up on Sunday?”
“God takes attendance by who’s missing.”
“A churchcentric view of the world sees ‘church’ as the destination. If we think the church is the destination then we don’t get it.”
“Why do we spend so much money on ourselves?”
“What’s the point of the people of God, if we are not the point?”
“Don’t have an evangelism strategy. Give up on that! It feels like a drive by shooting anyway. Instead have a ‘blessing’ strategy”
“Bless 3 people this week and make sure one of them doesn’t deserve it”
“Mostly house churches, because they dont know how to do church properly” ha ha ha!!
thought you’d like it 🙂
What is a house church? Is that different from a church church or a building church or a mega church or a normal church, maybe a street church? What type of church do you have?
Sorry, just a random sidetrack 🙂
we have a ‘missional church’ ha ha ha! 🙂
I certainly dont agree with him on a lot of what he said…I think if you pushed what he said, you might he was advocating a individualistic view of christianity. I am increasinging convinced that we become a Christian by becoming part of the body of Christ. I think he is right in a lot of what he said about allowing God to be King…and also the deep desire people have for spirituality, which is not always being nurtured in ‘churches’
Interesting stuff. There is a lot for me to think over. Thanks for sharing.
“think if you pushed what he said, you might he was advocating a individualistic view of christianity.”
Really? How?
I don’t think McNeal is advocating a faith outside of community/church at all. I think he is simply addressing the lens we look thru and showing that our interests have at times been skewed.
I thought he offered some great re-dress to the current way things are!
I like the idea of blessing people instead of evangelizing them. I agree with the drive-by shooting analogy, too. It’s more hands-on and much deeper to try to become invested in a person’s actual day-to-day life than it is to build enough emotion to start a conveyor belt of converts down the center aisle of the church.
Perhaps, though, our evangelistic designs are more like a drive-by tele-mercial than a drive-by shooting, though. While salvation is the gift we wish everyone to choose, we cheapen it when we wrap it up all nice and shiny in plastic.