“Make sure you bring Jesus & justice to the city.” - Ed Stetzer

If you have been around me for awhile you have probably heard me contextualize the Christ-follower’s life as INTIMACY and INCARNATION. John 5 has one of my favorite stories that models this. “19Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Jesus was one with the heart/will of His Father. Therefore, He DID whatever was on the heart of the Father. He became the hands and feet of His Father. Jesus has shared this privilege with us. We too can draw near to the heart of God. He reveals His heart. Then we become His hands and feet. He fills us with Himself - we overflow in the lives of others.

There are two incarnational areas we want to press into: evangelism and justice.

So I am at Lifeway today picking up a new book entitled, “Unchristian.” On the way back to my car I notice that Goodwill moved from next door. I thought, “I guess that means that homeless guys do not come up to Lifeway patrons anymore” (they frequented Goodwill and would slide over to Lifeway to ask for donations). I am about to close my car door and see someone walk up.

“Excuse me, can I ask you something?” “Sure,” I say. I enter into a conversation with “—-.” He told me his real name. He asked me for food money. He was hung over. I asked him if he was drunk the night before. “Yes.” We talked some more - I mainly listened to him. He said that he was known as “Red” and that he enjoyed our conversation.

I am not a photographer. But I began thinking about the lens of a camera. It is not something focus on, but rather, something you see through. However, if your lens is skewed then so is your perception.

We are called to be individuals between gospel and culture.
We are called to be a church between gospel and culture.

Each of these elements can be the lens of a person’s (or organization’s) perspective. This makes up a large portion of what we call worldview. We can look at everything from the individual, or the communal, or the cultural, or the gospel perspective.

We are called to understand our culture, yet we must be rooted to survive the risks of “in the world, yet not of it.” So what do we root in? What is the lens? It is not the individual’s mindset/opinion. It is not the communal wants/needs. It is not found in cultural immersion. It is only found in Christ and the Bible.

Darrell Bock has an excellent editorial on the Christianity Today web site musing about when the media became a nuisance. His thesis is “how to respond to the next blockbuster book/documentary/movie that questions traditional Christianity.”

He effectively argues that the way information is released on our information age is changing, making it increasingly difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction. Every Christmas and Easter season, there is an unending plethora of new “blockbuster” movies/books, tv specials, etc, proclaiming the need to redefine Christianity. He’s right that there is ’often there is a great deal of money to be made in breaking the “news” ’.

As he wisely points out …

Luke 14:27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35 “It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” NASB

Here is a book that some Acts 29 pastors are talking about:

Total Church, by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis.

From the forward:
“This book argues there are two key principles that should shape the way we ’do church’: gospel and community. Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context of a believing community. Whether we are thinking about evangelism, social involvement, pastoral care, apologetics, discipleship or teaching, the content is consistently the Christian gospel and the context is consistently the Christian community. What we do is always defined by the gospel and the context is always our belonging in the church. Our identity as Christians is defined by the gospel and the community.