McCracken Uncomfortable

The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4335-5428-5
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Does your church make you uncomfortable? It's easy to dream about the 'perfect' church-a church that sings just the right songs set to just the right music before the pastor preaches just the right sermon to a room filled with just the right mix of people who happen to agree with you on just about everything. Chances are your church doesn't quite look like that. But what if instead of searching for a church that makes us comfortable, we learned to love our church, even when it's challenging? What if some of the discomfort that we often experience is actually good for us? This book is a call to embrace the uncomfortable aspects of Christian community, whether that means believing difficult truths, pursuing difficult holiness, or loving difficult people-all for the sake of the gospel, God's glory, and our joy.

Brett McCracken is a senior editor for the Gospel Coalition and the author of The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World and Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community. He lives with his family in Southern California.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mccracken, Brett

Leseproben

Introduction

My Dream Church

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:4–5

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you could dream up the perfect church, what would it look like?

On days when I’m sitting in my real church and feeling frustrated by something, I sometimes daydream about my ideal church: the one where I would feel completely understood, where my perspectives would be valued, where my gifts and passions would flourish. I dream about a church I would always be proud (and never embarrassed) to call home; a church so amazing that any non-Christian who visited would never want to leave.

My hypothetical dream church would look something like the following. (If you’d prefer to skip over my self-indulgent dream church description, simply turn to page 23 to resume the actual argument of this book.)

The Building

My dream church (hereafter simply called DC) would be located in a major world city, in a neighborhood with ethnic, cultural, and class diversity.

DC would be architecturally contemporary and minimalist, environmentally sustainable (LEED-certified), with nods to classic church aesthetics. DC would be celebrated as a forward-thinking example of responsible urban design and sacred space, elegantly balancing practicality with superfluous beauty. The church’s sanctuary would be the architectural focal point and have such great acoustics and layout that it would become a desirable venue for concerts, arts, and community events.

Included in the church building would be a small number of offices and classrooms, a large all-purpose room, a bookstore, and a fitness center. A small green space on the church’s property would include a community garden growing a variety of organic produce. As part of the church’s energy-efficient design, its roof would also be green, featuring herb gardens and prayer spaces.

In addition to the main church building, members of DC would own and operate a highly rated restaurant, coffee shop, and roastery in the building next door, featuring ingredients from the church’s gardens.

Mercy Ministries and Community Outreach

DC would be a church very much about demonstrating the transformative power of the gospel through mercy, justice, and outreach efforts. Some of these efforts would be entirely church-driven, but many of them would be partnerships for the common good with local nonprofit and civic organizations.

All church members (including middle school and high school youth) would participate in one or more service opportunities for the community, such as: local food banks, after-school tutoring, nursing home visitation, crisis pregnancy centers, women’s shelters, or anti-trafficking task forces. In partnership with a local rescue mission, DC’s restaurant kitchen would cook free community meals on select weeknights, and the church would open its all-purpose room on several nights a week as an emergency homeless shelter.

As one of the city’s finest musical venues, DC’s beautiful church sanctuary would be rented out multiple nights a week as a concert venue. The church’s public arts and community events committee would organize the venue’s calendar with lectures, concerts, and film screenings year round. The church’s sanctuary would be a vibrant hub of the city’s civic life and arts scene.

Additionally, DC’s lobby would serve as a community art space where artists from both inside and outside the church could display and sell their work. DC’s bookstore would sell Bibles and books but also artisan goods made by church and community members, as well as coffee beans from the adjacent roastery and single-varietal jams made from the church’s organic garden. A percentage of sales from these goods would go toward DC’s mercy and justice fund.

The church’s adjacent restaurant and coffee shop would also play an integral role in community outreach. Open all week, these eateries would provide community dining and study spaces as well as venues for poetry readings and concerts. The restaurant/coffee shop’s kitchen and wait staff would be partially funneled from a local job training organization that helps homeless people, ex-convicts, and unemployed people develop skills to earn a living.

DC’s fully equipped fitness center would provide another service to the community, offering various fitness classes, CrossFit, and personal training throughout the week at rates cheaper than typical gym memberships.

DC’s all-purpose room and classrooms would be open periodically for outreach classes during the week, including Alpha for skeptics with questions about Christianity; Celebrate Recovery groups for those struggling with addictions; and a six-week premarital course offered a few times a year for seriously dating or engaged couples.

Theology

Theologically, DC would be conservative and Reformed, though not afraid to preach and celebrate the best contributions of Wesleyan and Pentecostal theology and even the occasional Eastern Orthodox or Catholic thinker (not to mention N. T. Wright!). The church would be thoroughly gospel-centered, Spirit-led, and missionally minded. Both the five Solas and the charismatic gifts would be inescapable in the church’s day-to-day life. A portrait of Martyn Lloyd-Jones would hang prominently in one of the church offices.

Structurally, DC would be elder-led, with preaching alternating between elders and a few non-elders with preaching gifts. Paid staff would be minimal as the church membership’s high volunteer percentage would bear the load of most all programs and functions of the church.

Though Word-centric, DC would have a robust theology of the Holy Spirit and balance the tensions therein. Other things DC would hold in healthy tension: local and global mission, engaging the culture with truth and love, preaching the gospel and demonstrating it in deed.

Multiplication and church planting would be central to DC’s mission. Member growth (mostly from new converts through outreach programs like Alpha) would lead not to new buildings or bigger sanctuaries, but to new church plants. As part of its church-planting orientation, DC would be part of a global network of church-planting partners, resulting in close relationships with churches both domestically and internationally. This would afford DC frequent opportunities to send and receive ministry teams for mutual building up and encouragement. New churches would be planted out of these partnerships and networks rather than solely relying on DC’s resources and members.

DC would have a robust, Kuyperian theology of vocation and an intellectual bent appropriate to its urban context. Except for a bit more on the Holy Spirit, the “Vision and Values” section of Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian sums up DC’s theology pretty well.1

Sundays

A typical Sunday morning at DC would begin in the lobby with coffee and pastries (chocolate blackberry croissants, maple bacon biscuits, lemon pistachio polenta cake, and so on) from the adjacent roastery and restaurant.

Worship services would incorporate liturgy and creeds, confession, read and spontaneous prayer, an exchanging of “the peace,” thirty to forty-five minutes of preaching, instrumental music, and extended singing time before and after the preaching.

Music on stage would be minimalist by modern evangelical church standards, with largely acoustic bands of fewer than five musicians. Piano, acoustic guitar, string trios, and French horn would be regularly incorporated, as would a variety of music styles from other cultures and contexts. A beautiful pipe organ (cherished not only by the elderly congregants) would figure prominently into at least one hymn each Sunday. Musicians would also be encouraged to write, record, and perform original music, largely inspired by biblical poetry and the Psalter.

Sunday morning services would always incorporate communion, with congregants standing and taking the elements collectively as an elder spoke the corresponding liturgy. Each Sunday morning would also end with a time of response, prayer, and a clear call to conversion. Planned and spontaneous baptisms would take place regularly, as multiple conversions would be a weekly occurrence.

Following services, churchgoers would be invited to stay for a community lunch in the all-purpose room. Catered by the adjacent restaurant and prominently featuring the best of the church garden’s seasonal produce,...