Nov
24
2009
What Is Gospel-Centered Ministry? (Part 2)
This week I’m highlighting the Gospel Coalition’s Theological Vision for Ministry and their characteristics for “gospel-centered ministry.”
The first was “empowered corporate worship.” The second is evangelistic effectiveness:
Because the gospel (unlike religious moralism) produces people who do not disdain those who disagree with them, a truly gospel-centered church should be filled with members who winsomely address people’s hopes and aspirations with Christ and his saving work.
We have a vision for a church that sees conversions of rich and poor, highly educated and less educated, men and women, old and young, married and single, and all races. We hope to draw highly secular and postmodern people, as well as reaching religious and traditional people.
Because of the attractiveness of its community and the humility of its people, a gospel-centered church should find people in its midst who are exploring and trying to understand Christianity. It must welcome them in hundreds of ways. It will do little to make them “comfortable” but will do much to make its message understandable.
In addition to all this, gospel-centered churches will have a bias toward church planting as one of the most effective means of evangelism there is.
3 Comments
Sounds like a worthy mission. I especially like the emphasis on diversity. That makes such a difference in the life of the church.
“Because the gospel (unlike religious moralism) produces people who do not disdain those who disagree with them, a truly gospel-centered church should be filled with members who winsomely address people’s hopes and aspirations with Christ and his saving work.”
I would like to think that this is true of evangelical churches around the world and it may be true of evangelical churches in US but speaking from UK I must say that this is not generally true of evangelicals here. Both the so-called conservative evangelicals and the so-called open evangelicals actually are significantly tainted by disdain for the views of others.
So I would like to know how we can move from gospel-centredenss to an attitude that avoided disdain. Can those in the US help us here?
Why not follow the Biblical principles that Paul lays out in Philippians 2:3-4?? That seems to eliminate any selfishness or disdain that we can pin up against others. At our ministry we call this “Rocking Philippians 2″