The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson

Author:Jared C. Wilson [Wilson, Jared C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, Spiritual Growth, Personal Growth, Christian Ministry, Discipleship, REL012120, REL012070, REL023000
ISBN: 9781493409273
Google: Fs_lDQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B01N10WNFI
Goodreads: 40557336
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2017-05-02T05:00:00+00:00

The very presence of the church should be a constant, living proclamation, like a lighthouse, of the benefits and blessings of community. Today this must mean embodying the biblically prescribed counterculture of the kingdom, challenging everyone who lives in the world to not live as those who are of it. Instead, our churches often reflect and emulate their cultures rather than challenge them. We have opted for being a mirror rather than a light.

Abandoning the reflection of culture and adopting the challenge (and caretaking) of culture will require our churches to think of their ministries less and less as a place where religious goods and services are provided and more and more as a training center where the community is inspired and empowered by the regular preaching of the gospel to follow Jesus, and where it learns how to serve its neighbors and each other in his name.

The business of a local church as a provider of spiritual goods and services to Christian consumers is pervasive and difficult to counteract, because in our hearts we are essentially consumers. Because our culture both feeds our consumption and stirs up more desires for consumption within us, a church that appeals to our passivity, that reflects our susceptibility to shiny things, appetites, and pride, can sometimes be the most appealing option. Churches that require little more than spectatorship but supply a vast array of programs, classes, and services do extremely well in our consumer culture. Many of us choose church communities not because of brotherhood or relational connection or submission to the idea of community itself but rather because the music is better, the services are at more convenient times, the youth ministry is well-resourced, or some other appealing feature.

The result of all this is the customer-driven church, where everything is tailored and marketed directly for maximum impact among maximum crowds. In the customer-driven church, the churchgoer is in the seat of honor. The customer, as they say, is always right. The problem with this is that the entry point for the kingdom is the denial and crucifixion of self.

Another problem is that every church hosts multiple customers. When we’re all there for ourselves, not only do we not reap the best benefits of Christian discipleship but we’re barely even a church. There is no concept of the church in the New Testament as a collection of individuals with individual ambitions and preferences. The whole enterprise is driven from the outside by the Spirit of God and mechanized on the inside by the unity of community.

Even when it comes to community efforts by churches, the way is rough going. The dirty little secret of modern church programming is that small group programs are not working well.4 We all recognize they are key to cultivating the need for community in our churches, but most of us also recognize they are notoriously difficult to pull off. There are a lot of reasons for this, but they all boil down primarily to the fact that American Christians don’t want to experience community.

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