Community
I was reading last night and came across this... "Without a clear definition of what a missional church community is and does, tragically, community will become the mission.... Consequently the goal of people will be to hang out together in love.... While this is not evil, it is also not sufficient. If taken too far, this can lead to the heresy of participatory redemption, in which the goal is to have authentic friendships and a loving community instead of repentance and personal faith in Jesus as the means of salvation."
Okay. Guilty as charged! :( I had never thought about it this way, but I think this is a major problem in Churchianity... participatory redemption would teach that the entire goal is just to get peopel to come and live together as nice boys and girls! When I think about it, it's just another version of everybody try to be as good as you can. It's works (be good) based salvation. The new community that Jesus builds is not based on everybody coming and being good - it's based on lives transformed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. That leads to the authentic community sought by the former, but it is so much more....
Okay. Guilty as charged! :( I had never thought about it this way, but I think this is a major problem in Churchianity... participatory redemption would teach that the entire goal is just to get peopel to come and live together as nice boys and girls! When I think about it, it's just another version of everybody try to be as good as you can. It's works (be good) based salvation. The new community that Jesus builds is not based on everybody coming and being good - it's based on lives transformed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. That leads to the authentic community sought by the former, but it is so much more....
