Jan
20
2012
The threshold of non-ignorability
“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” Acts 17:6
In the days of the apostles, outsiders disparaged the church, but they couldn’t ignore the church. Today, here in the Bible Belt, our task is to re-create those conditions. We want to be a force for wonderful gospel upheaval. How? By planting so many gospel-centered churches that the blessing of God cannot be ignored. Being spoken against, as ones who turn the world upside down, is not a problem. Being ignored is, because this isn’t about us. It’s about Jesus.
In the corporate psychology of every city, there is a threshold of non-ignorability. Here in Nashville, many things can be ignored. But the Titans cannot be ignored, country music cannot be ignored, Vanderbilt University cannot be ignored. But the gospel remains too ignorable.
An organic, from-below, non-big-event strategy of church-planting — some churches small, some medium, some large — but churches with a clear message of grace and a beautiful culture of grace, churches of gospel + safety + time where sinners can rethink their lives without pressure, churches where sinners can admit their problems without being humiliated, churches where there are more and more stories of divine renewal, and Nashville will wake up one morning in the not-too-distant future and sense that something has changed. And it cannot be ignored, it cannot be dismissed, it cannot be written off as anomalous, because it is not just another big event down at the Ryman Auditorium that comes and goes but is embodied in a growing network of radiant churches that are here to stay.
May the Lamb receive the reward of his suffering in Nashville.