I still remember standing there, it was my junior year of college, I was at a retreat with other students in my major and I was so happy to get "away" for a few days. It was our first day and we were circled up and I prayed...I thanked God that we could "escape" the "real world" for a couple days and just focus on Him...and then the professor that was with us said something that I have been wrestling with ever since, "this is the real world!" he went on to explain something to the effect of this: "life does not get more real than when we are conscious of being in God's presence...and this was how we (as Christians) were to live everyday."
In the first two chapters of The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard introduces this very idea, the very thought that in the midst of the world that surrounds us where fewer and fewer people accept the fact that anything can be absolute truth. A world where more and more people a pursuing intimacy in places where they are merely left empty; a world where self-sufficiency is viewed as a tremendous strength, where one who can go through life while paving one's own road is praised. It is in the midst of this world that God came in and provided an invitation to a life in His Kingdom, in His presence, in intimate relationship with Him.
But is this the same invitation that the Church is presenting to the world around us? Are we (the Church) inviting people to share in intimate relationship with God, or merely inviting them to receive a "to go pass"? Or are we inviting people to a religious system where we must constantly be checking off a religious to-do list? I have personally tried to live out both of these approaches to my Christian walk, neither of which do I believe is "having life to the full (John 10:10)" that Jesus invites us to experience. In the first model, one can easily become so entwined with the world that they never even look for anything beyond the physical realm one has always know. With the latter model, one often becomes so busy "doing God's work" that they blind themselves to His very presence.
So what are we to do to return to the invitation that Jesus brought into the world? Willard suggests a return to this invitation must start in the message presented by Christian leaders all over the United States from the pulpit; Willard suggests that "the disconnection of the life from faith, the absence from our churches of Jesus the teacher—is not caused by the wicked world, by social oppression, or by the stubborn meanness of the people who come to our church services and carry on the work of our congregations. It is largely cause and sustained by the basic message that we constantly hear from Christian pulpits (57)."
When church leaders decide to stop trying to make the Gospel relevant and begin to show the culture how the gospel is relevant (Driscoll’s definition of contextualization) I believe we will see this return. When the church leaders present the invitation to the life transforming reality that humanity can share in an intimate relationship with its Creator. When the Church stops trying to complicate the gospel and proclaims the same Kingdom that Christ proclaimed there will no longer be a question within the church as to what reality is. The presence of the creator God is so real, so tangible that after being experienced it cannot be denied. The desire for the things of this world begin to fade and one can experience reality humanity was created to.
Adam and Eve could not dent that they were walking in God's presence in the garden of Eden, It was real. They did not live in anticipation of a day when they would see the Kingdom of Heaven, the witnessed it everyday. Unfortunately, through sin, they were removed from it. We now can have access to it once again in the same manner Adam and Eve did. Being able to live TODAY in the presence of God is what has been made available to us through Jesus Christ and I agree with you, this is the message the church needs to be sending. Not one of preparing for eternity, but participating in the Kingdom of Heaven today.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Bondo that in order to return the invitation that Jesus brought in to the world we must start with the message presented by our Christian leaders but i don't believe it should stop there nor should the weight of this be just on them. i believe we are all responsible to present an authentic invitation and this should be noticeable in our every day lives. so i think all of us as a Christian family should take up this challenge to restore the Gospel that Jesus preached because as you said the presence of the creator is so real that after being experienced it cannot be denied.
ReplyDeleteHawk, that is a great point! The invitation cannot stop with church leaders, but must be something that all followers of Christ take into the world (Matt 28:19-20).
ReplyDeleteYou and I have similar thoughts about this. I am a person who also follows the belief of the "real world". The world that we live in during the week and the world that we live in on Sunday are different. But your blog kind of changed my perception, what is more real that God himself? We live in his time and his world, what could possibly be more real than that?
ReplyDeleteI think you are spot on when you say that church leaders need to stop attempting to show how the gospel is relevant to culture and simply show them that it already is relevent. When we begin to do that, we begin to see how "real" the world of God truly is.
As I've said before, I love the idea that the things we do in deep intimacy with God and His people are more real than things done without them.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the bulk of eternity will be spent in that kind of relationship. Like a dream, what we call "real" is really pretty fleeting and temporary, huh?