7 Responses to “JUMP OFF NOW”

1. Kevin Says:
   March 22nd, 2005 at 2:03 pm

   It sounds to me like the church is way to in love with itself and needs a reminder that the relevancy of the Gospel is founded in Christ, not us. i’d like to go in a corner now and cry for our church.

2. myles Says:
   March 22nd, 2005 at 5:41 pm

   i’d be interested to hear what specifically about this exchange bothered you. i can point to some things i think are off base about the things they noted, but i’d be interested in your thoughts. one thing to consider: historically, where the church is located has shifted since the 1st century. through the first 12 centuries or so, you have the locus of the church in the sacraments, shifting somewhere around the Reformation to the “church” being located in the congregants. was one wrong? maybe. maybe it just shifted. either way, i don’t think the church disappeared following the Reformation, or didn’t fully exist prior to it. the Spirit sustains the church through all generations, in spite of errors.

   so, yes, i agree that generalized terms like “relationships” can be dangerous out of context, but ultimately, can we say that Spirit-moderated changes in our worship setting is bad?

3. Aaron O. Says:
   March 22nd, 2005 at 6:19 pm

   I was most struck by the first point: customizing your own worship. That was perhaps the most terribly individualistic and market-driven philosophy of worship I have ever seen. Ever since the ascendancy of the Baby Boomers, worship has been all about how to please me and make sure I’m comfortable.

4. Jared Bridges Says:
   March 22nd, 2005 at 8:56 pm

   “We must begin being others-oriented, addressing the potential constituents’ agenda, not the messenger’s agenda.”

   What’s missing here, quite glaringly, is that the bride of Christ is supposed to be God-oriented. There’s no mention of that here.

   No worries Matt about evangelicalism coming to this — this sounds like it has long left evangelicalism behind.

5. matt h. Says:
   March 23rd, 2005 at 10:34 am

   Myles - I would agree that the church was by and large centered around the sacraments until the Reformation. If you were to ask a Christian of that era how they had a “personal relationship” with Jesus it would certainly have been understood that it was through the sacraments. But I do think there is good reason to believe that the Apostolic church was centered around the ministry of the Word, rather than the very elaborate sacramentalism of early medieval church life. The church clearly patterned their liturgy around much of what was analogous in the “liturgy” of the synagogue - and here, the reading of Torah was central.

   And I hope we would all agree that the Holy Spirit is to be authoritative in the church - but the reality is that He works through the Word! So if we deemphasize the ministry of the Word, then it seems we deemphasize the leading and guiding of the Spirit.

   In addition to Aaron and Jared’s points, I’d point out the problem with this comment from Schaller: “When I was a pastor, I would read passages and a few people listened. But in that same church today, they use praise music and 80 percent of the church participates. When you say ‘contemporary,’ you really mean participatory.” Does anyone actually buy that?! Corporate worship that engages the community of faith gathered is not a matter of “contemporary vs. traditional” - the Genevan Order of Worship is in fact quite ‘participatory’!

   An even more glaring problem in the article is that no one seems terribly concerned with what Scripture has to say on the matter - Len Sweet seems more interested in the shift in the way U2 performs!

   Jared - I hope you’re right, but this is in a publication read by droves of evangelical pastors… many of whom seem all too willing to hop on the nearest bandwagon.

6. Warren Says:
   March 23rd, 2005 at 3:18 pm

   I can agree to an extent with the idea of forming meaningful relationships — but those relationships should be focused on Christ first.

   I see a lot of neo-orthodox influence in the whole “In the new world, we’ll debrief people’s experiences to see where God is already at work,” thing. It seems that what we read in Scripture is validated by our experience, rather than our experience being validated by what Scripture teaches.

7. Jeremy P. Says:
   March 23rd, 2005 at 4:18 pm

   This article is simply another example of how the focus of worship has shifted from God to man, guised as an attempt to “reach our culture”. All of a sudden, being “cultural” is more important than being “holy” in our approach to worship.

   Ironically, it is the aquiesence to culture that makes us culturally ineffective, for by doing that, we abandon our “cultural” uniqueness as a holy people called out from the world.

   Marva Dawn’s Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down comments on this. Her thesis statement is: “It is my claim that we ought not to, and do not need to, conform to our culture’s patterns, but that the Christian community must intentionally sustain its unique character and just as intentionally care about the culture around it in order to be able to introduce people genuinely to Christ and to nurture individuals to live faithfully.”

   In other words, we do not influence culture by adopting it into ours! The culture of the church should look different than the culture of the world.

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