Comments on: A Going Church http://churchethos.com/church-planting/missiology/a-going-church/ Making Disciples :: Planting Churches Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:15:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Silouan Thompson http://churchethos.com/church-planting/missiology/a-going-church/comment-page-1/#comment-429 Silouan Thompson Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:01:58 +0000 http://churchethos.wordpress.com/?p=550#comment-429 > "We freely talk about our spouse, our children, our pets, our hobbies, and our interests, but not about our God?!" I think that's partly because God is compartmentalized away among the uncomfortable things we're not good at. American pop religion has taught us to go to services and receive words and music, "get fed" and "get edified." It hasn't taught us effective practical means to be free from our habits and obsessions, or to be made full of virtue and integrity, or how to be a community with the values of the Gospels.. People are also selfconscious and uncomfortable talking about God-stuff because they're motivated largely by guilt. They've been taught you have to "witness" and get your friends and family saved, or else God will hurt them forever and it'll be YOUR FAULT. If instead, Christians confidently shared our trust and joy in the One Who seeks reconciliation with all, and Who is making us ever more free and alive in Him - then instead of an unnatural sales pitch (witness and get it over with), talking about Christ is an organic part of who we are. But as long as American religion teaches people Two Step discipleship (1. Git saved; 2. Go git people saved) then we can't expect a lot of confident, joyful fruit-bearing disciples. All we can look forward to is churchgoers whose knowledge of "religion" ends with the atonement - which instead ought to be our launchpad into relationship and transformation. > "We freely talk about our spouse, our children, our pets, our hobbies, and our interests, but not about our God?!"

I think that's partly because God is compartmentalized away among the uncomfortable things we're not good at. American pop religion has taught us to go to services and receive words and music, "get fed" and "get edified." It hasn't taught us effective practical means to be free from our habits and obsessions, or to be made full of virtue and integrity, or how to be a community with the values of the Gospels..

People are also selfconscious and uncomfortable talking about God-stuff because they're motivated largely by guilt. They've been taught you have to "witness" and get your friends and family saved, or else God will hurt them forever and it'll be YOUR FAULT. If instead, Christians confidently shared our trust and joy in the One Who seeks reconciliation with all, and Who is making us ever more free and alive in Him – then instead of an unnatural sales pitch (witness and get it over with), talking about Christ is an organic part of who we are.

But as long as American religion teaches people Two Step discipleship (1. Git saved; 2. Go git people saved) then we can't expect a lot of confident, joyful fruit-bearing disciples. All we can look forward to is churchgoers whose knowledge of "religion" ends with the atonement – which instead ought to be our launchpad into relationship and transformation.

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