Jason Coker has been posting some excellent articles on the Vineyard in the aftermath of Tony Jones' comments. His recent description of a missional think tank (which included David Ruis!) is very helpful. Two things that encouraged me were the fact that they were resisting trashing the attractional models and that they are also wrestling with how to incorporate whole families into some sort of post-Christiandom church life. I've struggled with this a lot in my own church planting/pastoring work. I have to agree that we are in for a hard road. And I see two reasons for this: 1) Churches are stubbornly hanging on to Christendom models. We shouldn't always have to arrive late to the party. And 2) the culture that rejects organized religion on religion's terms does not have clear models for developing an ecclesiology. The resistance that is part of the cultural makeup actually works against efforts to define what a post-Christiandom church might look like.
I think the question is: Is it worth it? And for that the only answer I can give is yes. The reason for that is because of what I've seen the encounter of God do in the lives of people. Heck, my own life is completely revolutionized because of the God who met me in my brokenness. For that reason alone it is worth the wrestling to build a church that can carry this message of hope to the world. Do you think it is worth it?
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