Thursday, December 13, 2007

Pimp That Cart

I read this on a blog post from teampyro.blogspot.com

"The evangelical mistake is this: if we make a community with attractive values, maybe we can then slip the Gospel in sideways and draw people to Christ. It makes the community consequences of the Gospel the objective rather than something which is caused by the objective."

It was a post about the gospel presentation and how watering it down over the years has yielded preaching that rarely if ever includes any message of sin-forgiveness-gospel, etc. In essence, the cart has been put before the horse, and the modern evangelical community has made the false assumption that if you make a nice enough cart for people to get in, they'll eventually notice the horse behind it. But in reality, community is a result of us hopping in a cart with the right horse in front of it because we want to follow that horse, not because the cart is nice. Try convincing a perfectly happy sinner that "a relationship with Jesus" will "make his life better."

Pimped out cart before the horse: (Look at me, I'm in this fabulously pimped out cart and we all love each other and have fun, come join us! Oh, the horse behind us? My pastor can tell you about him later...hop in! Oh, you've got other things to do? Too bad, you'll really miss out on what this life has to offer...)

I think you can imagine the alternative (Hey you! You need a ride in this cart. Look its the only one with a horse attached; its the only one that's going to go anywhere. Oh, and you don't have legs so you aren't going anywhere without this horse.)

This got me thinking about other areas of Christian life and wondering about the cart-horse relationship in those instances. The first that came to mind was worship. Why do we do it? Is it so that I get something out of it? A good feeling or "closeness to God" perhaps? OR, do I worship because as I acknowledge who God is and what he has done, it is the only logical response? If the latter is the case, then the good feelings will follow. Its like giving a Christmas gift. I don't do it because it makes me feel good, I do it for the person I'm giving the gift to. Giving them something that makes them happy makes me feel good. Its not the giving so much as knowing the recipient is pleased. So does worship make you feel good? It should, but it should make you feel good because you know God is pleased by it.

So are you in the pimped out cart or the one with the horse in front?

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