As previously mentioned, I have been invited to travel to northern New England this fall to speak at a conference on the centrality of the gospel. This is a cool opportunity for me and a significant chance to plant gospel seed in some of the hardest soil in north America.
Any cultural observer or missiologist will agree that the northeastern U.S. is the hardest place on American soil for church planting and renewal. The home of the Great Awakening has now become a bastion of stale, liberal religiosity littered with dead and dying churches. But God is doing something. A resurgence of gospel interest is taking place among many young church leaders. God is calling church planters to forsake ’safer’ soil in the South and move to New England to labor there. And within established churches – many of them hundreds of years old – a desire is growing to rediscover the centrality of the gospel, the mission of Jesus, and the work of church planting.
Please pray for my role in the Lead Conference to further the work God is already doing, for His kingdom and glory.
This fall I am speaking at a conference in New England on the subject of gospel-centered church planting. My task in the opening keynote talk for the conference is to address the question: what is the gospel?
I thought it would be interesting – and helpful in my preparation – to invite blog readers to give their 2 cents on this question. What should I make sure to talk about in order to give a full and robust answer to the question?
from the “Gospel and the Heart” study, Harbor Presbyterian Church, San Diego CA
The liberal/pragmatist approach to evangelism is to deny the legitimacy of evangelism altogether. By contrast, the conservative/moralist person does believe in proselytizing, because “we are right and they are wrong.” Such proselytizing is almost always offensive.
The gospel is a “third way,” different from both of these, which produces a constellation of traits in us:
First, we are compelled to share the gospel out of generosity and love, not guilt
Second, we are freed from fear of being ridiculed or hurt by others, since we already have the favor of God by grace
Third, there is a humility in our dealings with others, because we know we are saved only by grace alone, not because of our superior insight or character.
Fourth, we are hopeful about anyone, even the “hard cases,” because we were saved only because of grace, not because we were likely people to be Christians.
Fifth, we are courteous and careful with people. We don’t have to push or coerce them, for it is only God’s grace that opens hearts, not our eloquence or persistence or even their openness.
All these traits not only create a winsome evangelist but an excellent neighbor in a multi-cultural society.
The point of the Redemption Stories video series is to narrate how the gospel is changing the lives of actual people within the Coram Deo Church Community. Randi’s is one of my favorite stories yet: a great tale of God’s providence with an interesting back-story involving a sermon I preached in the Douglas County Jail. (To one of the most intimidating audiences I’ve ever faced… and they were all women).
Thanks, Randi, for sharing your story on video. And thank you Jesus for your amazing grace that transforms felons into followers and friends.
The goal of the ‘Redemption Stories’ video series is to show how the gospel is at work in the lives of actual people so that we can celebrate together, church-wide, the ways God is moving around us.
In this video, Micah talks about his slide into depression and how the gospel, spoken and lived out by a community of friends, was essential in pulling him out.
Thanks again to Coram Deo’s own Jon Kayser for his incredible camera and production work that makes these videos possible.
This is the third installment in the Redemption Stories video series. The goal of these videos is to tell stories of how the gospel is at work in the lives of actual people so that we can celebrate together, church-wide, the ways God is moving around us.
Kelli tells the story of how brokenness in her family led her to search in vain for acceptance through beauty and achievement – and how she ultimately found what she was looking for in Jesus.
This is the second installment in the Redemption Stories video series. The goal is of these videos is to tell stories of how the gospel is at work in the lives of actual people so that we can celebrate together, church-wide, the ways God is moving around us.
Nathan tells the story of how he fell into a pattern of compulsive gambling – and how the message of the gospel (and a community centered on the gospel) were crucial in getting him out.
This is the first in a new series of videos called Redemption Stories that we’ll be showing at Coram Deo’s Sunday gathering. The goal is to tell stories of how the gospel is at work in the lives of actual people. God’s grace is transforming people throughout our church, but too often the stories of what He’s doing only get told within missional communities or smaller sub-sets of our church family. These videos exist to help us celebrate together, church-wide, the ways God is moving around us.
Special thanks to Jon Kayser, who is serving the mission of God by lending his considerable production skills to this project. (Also to Ben Lueders, who is the official “key grip” of the Redemption Stories video team.) And most of all, to Barb and the others who will follow: thanks for being willing to share your story on camera.
It’s not necessarily wise to go on an idol hunt all the time, or explore every motive. That might lead to unhealthy introspection. Our focus should be on God’s liberating truth. A good guide is to explore your sinful desires only when you see the bad fruit of sinful behavior and negative emotions in your life… When you see that bad fruit, trace it back to the idolatrous desires of your heart.
Introspective self-analysis is a recent cultural phenomenon. Our evangelical forebears practiced self-examination, but it was different. They assumed a clear link between actions and the heart. Spotting that link was made difficult by the deceitfulness of sin, but the answer was not deep introspection, but illumination brought by the Spirit and the word. But we live post-Freud. Sigmund Freud said that the roots of our actions and emotions are deep in our subconscious. Because it’s subconscious, we need to dig it out by means of deep and endless introspection. We often bring this model to sanctification. We think we need some form of analysis or counseling to uncover the hidden depths of our actions. In reality, our need is to look to Christ. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes: “We cross the line from self-examination to introspection when, in a sense, we do nothing but examine ourselves… If we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems… it probably means that we are all the time centred upon ourselves.” Introspection assumes I’m what matters in sanctification. But it’s God who changes us. As God to expose your heart by the Spirit through his word (Psalm 139:23-24; Hebrews 4:12-13). But don’t linger when looking at yourself. Linger when looking at Christ. As Robert Murray M’Cheyne famously said: “For one look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.”
- from Tim Chester’s book You Can Change, p. 120-121.
