Dig!Awesome when the snow comes, homebound and a good book in hand.Oh yea—my all time fav theology book, great reading, great meditation stuff, great thought provoking read—awesome—I suggest all ‘followers’ read this book—
The Shape of Practical Theology by Ray S. AndersonThis book is great for living out Christ in you!
I personally get tired of hearing ‘followers’ talk badly about the local church.Like “the church is not doing enough” or “the church isn’t this or that”. I don’t mind criticism—I can be critical too—but, if the church isn’t doing what is wanted—step in and do it.Like if the church is not taking care of the needy—go and do it and show the way.I know some that are doing that—but I dare say, don’t get to high on oneself for doing something while others are not.In time, with a servants attitude a few may get it and a few more may join in.Even worse—those that call themselves ‘followers’ and think that the church is about escaping the world. Treating the world as the problem is not at all How God views the world, nor how Jesus saw the world.
Anderson writes in the Shape of Practical Theology“It is not only the world that needs the church in order to have Christ.The church also needs to be in relation to the world in order to know Christ and in order to be the Body of Christ.Formation of Christ in the world does not take place apart from the world.This can be seen as the thrust of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25, where the formation of Christ in the world occurs through ministering to those who are outcasts, visiting the imprisoned, ministering to the poor and clothing the naked.”
“The Christian mission does not bring Christ to the world.That is not power.Rather Christians witness by their own presence in the world that Christ has come to the world and has taken up the cause of the afflicted, the oppressed and the estranged as His own cause.Solidarity between the community of Christian believers and the world has already been established through the incarnation.”
--Ray S. Anderson
On the one hand there are those that find ways to reach out to the lost, the poor, the afflicted—alone, by themselves—while the affect would be much greater together as the local church.Yes, I agree that if the local church isn’t touching the outcasts—I would agree that people should take it upon themselves to go touch the lives of those outcast and afflicted.I would also say that those that are off doing it alone—would do much by continuing to press their local church to come along--- one person at a time—make the effort to bring the church along…. Try try try to get the local church engaged.
But for those that continue the wrong—out right wrong view when they think that the local church is a fortress against the world.It is not.It is a light in the world, it is to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world—I have know idea how it got messed up—but somehow, somewhere the issue of the value of the local church has been lost when the local church goes inward and just placates believers, coddles and treats believers as mere babes—maybe in truth that is where some of the leaders would like them to remain—babies.
I agree totally with Anderson when he says, “It is not only the world that needs the church in order to have Christ.The church also needs to be in relation to the world in order to know Christ and in order to be the Body of Christ.Formation of Christ in the world does not take place...
