with intention

more on duty and serventhood::LK 17:10
reading eddie gibbs' ChurchNext
in the chapter From Market Driven to Mission Oriented, Gibbs suggests two issues that arise from our modern approaches to church growth::
1.>marketing church to the consumer turns the gospel into a means to an end.... and the end is me. i agree...because i sense this in my own life. the gospel has become to the church a means for personal fulfillment. hard issue to address b/c it shifts the whole paradigm off of the topic of us. Not To Us (thank you Chris Tomlin) as McManus so beautifully relates, "unfortunatly, for too many people, when the conversation is no longer about them, there's not much left to be said." - unstoppable force
- so we go to church get our fill and dispose of the gospel M-F. what type of church takes us to a point of brokeness that we must search through our entire week just to find the answers to our deepest longings. it will no longer be a church with a message that assumes the consumers sovereignty. McManus also relates that "if we are not willing to die to ourselves, we will die by ourselves."
2.>this approach or marketing the church to the consumer has made discipleship cheap. I too sense this in my own life. if the equation of spirituality doesn't come up in the red in the worlds eyes, we missed it somewhere. it's gotta look like this [ - = + ]
less = more. Luke 9:57-62 clearly messes with the american dream. Is there any other option than to be sucked into the dominant culture... to fit into our world without even thinking-[rom12:1-2message]...Gordon Cosby from the church of the savior in dc says that it will take the average american a good 2 years of re-centering his life to begin to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

"Christianity is a "going down" kind of religion before it is a "going up" kind of religion. In communicating this message we do not attract people as though they were customers, but we address them as fellow sinners, confessing together that we have only one answer to our common need. Unless and until we are prepared to die to self, we will never be in a position to live for Christ."p.45