Questions, doubt and Consumerism Part 2

As the "Savage Baptist" aptly points out in the comments of the last post, it takes two to tango. Yes, the leader gladly takes power from others when it comes to people's faith often to the point of discouraging hard questions. But the community member often gladly hands this power over to the leader. You might call this a transaction. Each has something to benefit from the transaction. In fact both have something to loose as well.

We talked about this at eikon on Sunday night.

Responsibilities church leaders and community members exchange.
- Roles as leaders (there is a distinction between clergy and laity right?)
- evangelism (Bring your friends to church we'll share the gospel with them)
- missional living (We'll advertise and new people will come)
- meaningful service (fill a slot for us everyone once in while)
- discipleship of their children (what parent's have time to do this really?)
- ministry to neighbors (fall festival anyone?)
- community (we'll introduce you to the people who will be your best friends in a small group)

to name a few.

When the church says they want to make disciples, but then systematically removes the responsiblity for leadership, evangelism, missional living, meaningful services, discipleship of their children, ministry to their neighbors, and transformative community how do we expect to accomplish this?

then answer shows our cards regarding how wholistic we are when it comes to what it means to follow Jesus. We mean listen to sermons and agree with them. Everything else is gravy in this mentality.

For me, and my friends, it's all gospel. In fact, one might argue, that one learns what it means to be a disciple, not from hearing a sermon by by engaging in the very things we take away from our community.