The Lamb's Agenda by Samuel Rodriguez

Author:Samuel Rodriguez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

8.

AN HD OR ANALOG

MOVEMENT

AS OF FEBRUARY 2009, THROUGHOUT AMERICA all televisions began receiving their signals exclusively by way of a digital format rather than through the traditional analog format. Today, to watch your favorite television program, Dancing with the Stars or American Idol or NCIS, you must either have a high-definition TV or an apparatus that makes your television HD compatible. The government described this historic transition as “the end of the rabbit ears.”

To fulfill the Agenda of the Lamb, the American church must move out of its own “rabbit ears” era. The choice, today, is to make the necessary modifications or to appear as obsolete as an analog TV. Unfortunately, the signal the American church now sends about who God is and what he is saying comes across broken and blurry, especially to the so-called “Millennials” (those born after 1980).

For too many people today of all age groups, even those who are affiliated with a church, Sunday morning is little more than a social occasion, an opportunity to dress up, visit with friends, listen to an idle hour of feel-good preaching and singing, and go to brunch afterward, utterly unmoved about changing one’s life.

To make matters worse, scandals fill pulpits, divorces destroy families, and our youth embrace an empty universalism while we preach more about money than we do about the soul. This is rabbit-ears Christianity, nothing more or less than a church transmitting fuzzy signals to a dwindling audience.

Just as HDTV enhances the quality of televised images exponentially, so, too, do we need to transmit a high-definition picture of a gospel that is both incarnating and transforming. What does an HD church look like? Let’s not forget high definition is about image resolution, clarity of picture, speed of information, and multi-faceted engagement through on-demand programming, Internet transmission, and networking. Thus, an HD church will present a clear picture of a loving God who repudiates sin while loving the sinner.

Without a doubt, a fresh holiness movement needs to take place, with a commitment to addressing a sin-tolerant culture but without the vestiges of legalism. This church will incorporate the eternal truth, “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44).

Second, an HD Lamb’s Agenda movement in America will require engagement and interaction with the culture. However, American culture cannot merely be engaged by the church. It must be reformed through the church. We need a clear picture, a biblical and righteous transmission of God, family, morality, righteousness, and justice to compete with the relentlessly violent and hedonistic imagery that is now subverting our youth.

Thirdly, high-definition Christianity in America requires programs, systems, institutions, delivery mechanisms, and finally, communities that can facilitate clear and viable transmission of the gospel. Yes, high-definition enables television viewers to multitask, work on the Internet, order on demand, and entertain. But Christianity has much more to offer than even the best home entertainment center. The church can address the social, spiritual, physical, intellectual, and communal needs of all its constituents.

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