As I close the series I have been doing that examines what the Lord has been doing in my heart through the book, UnChristian, by Kinnaman and Lyons, I wanted to give you a few final quotes that have impacted me greatly. If you care about reaching the next generation or two with the message of Jesus Christ, I hope you will pick up a copy of this book and read it. Perhaps I was the only one who needed an attitude adjustment…….but I don’t think so.
It has been said that the definition of insanity is ‘doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result’. With the Mosaics and the Busters we cannot keep doing the same things that we, as a church, have been doing and expect them to cozy up to Jesus. Just because those things worked on previous generations does not mean they will work on today’s young people. It just is not going to happen.
If I had to sum up what I have learned in one word, it would be LOVE. We need to show the LOVE of Jesus to the world. We need to treat outsiders with love and we need to treat our fellow believers with LOVE. As the old song says, “They will know that we are Christians by our love – by our love. Yes, they’ll know that we are Christians by our love.”
Take in a few more quotes:
“Christians in the older generations (those of us over 40 – ouch that hurts!) will need to work hard at re-discovering what it means to follow Christ in today’s culture. It may start with an honest admission that some of what you may have called ‘Christianity’ has no connection to the faith at all. It may require letting go of the baggage that surrounds ardent denominationalism, or decisively stepping away from the comfortable Christian subculture. It could mean taking the risk of being labeled ‘worldly’ or ‘liberal’ because of a biblically based commitment to advocate for cultural issues, like social justice and caring for God’s creation. Maybe it’s a willingness to consider how much your faith has become entangled with Western values that are at odds with the heart of Christianity, such as consumerism and materialism.” Emphasis mine, p. 225
The final pages of this book are full of perspectives from respected leaders about what Christians could be known for in thirty years….if we take seriously these charges of being unChristian and resolve to do something about it.
“I think Christians ought to be known for loving people outside their social comfort zones.” Dave Gibbons, pastor New Song Church
“Power doesn’t come from membership at the right church or in the right denomination. Real power comes from a strong personal relationship with God, with encouragement and accountability coming from the body of believers. Christians in 2037 will care more about their personal relationships than their 11 a.m. Sunday morning reservation. In following Christ, Christians in 2037 will go to places others won’t go and say things others won’t say in the name of God, so that people are convicted, not entertained.” Jeff Johnson, BET host and international correspondant
“I have faith that in the future we will make better decisions on what issues we think are important. When we stand up for something and draw a line in the sand, we will know it is clearly for the cause of Christ and not for some political, religious, or self-serving agenda. We will pick the hills we die on more wisely and choose to go to battle a little less often. And when we stand up for something, we will take our two favorite companions: grace and love. They will stand on the left and right of us. And we would never be so foolish or unwise as to ever journey without them.” Mike Foster, president of Ethur, founder of XXXChurch.com
“My dream is that thirty years from now, the church will be known more by what it is for than what it is against. For some time now, the hands and feet of the body of Christ have been amputated, and we’ve been pretty much reduced to a big mouth. We talk far more than we do. It’s time to reattach the limbs and let the church be the church in the twenty-first century.” Dr. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church http://www.pastors.com
Am I considered to be unChristian? Are you unChristian? Do we even care?
