In “Changing the Metrics: The Benefits of Measuring Devotion and Obedience, Not just Numbers” (Leadership Network, www.leadnet.org, pp 11-12), Pat Springle shares the view of Ken Fong, Pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Ken asserts that many churches err in seeking to make people feel comfortable so they’ll come to hear about Christ. In doing so they have robbed the gospel of its power to transform lives. This is of particular concern in presenting the gospel to the emerging post-modern generations.
According to Ken, “We’ve been teaching a two-chapter gospel instead of all four chapters. We talk about the fall (chapter two) and the cross (chapter three), and people who listen think that being saved is the end of the story.” The two chapters that have been omitted are the first, that God created us in his image with innate value and an essential love of goodness and beauty, and the fourth chapter of the revolution of healing and transformation.
The problem is, if we omit the first chapter, we see people and the world only as fallen, and we fail to appreciate the arts and the dignity of all people. And by ending with the cross and salvation (chapter three), we make the revolution of healing and transformation optional, or perhaps, reserved only for “really radical” believers.
According to Ken, in our self-indulgent culture, our truncated gospel message gives people very little incentive to take the next step. Sacrifice and suffering for Christ aren’t even on the table. The source of many frustrations of pastors today, Ken observes, isn’t in their inability to be persuasive. One of the main reasons so few people are devoted Christ-followers is that we’ve made it an option they can take or leave. All they hear is, “We wish you’d follow Christ and obey him,” but they shrug and think, “I’m saved. That’s good enough.”
Many people today, especially in the younger generation, Ken argues, intuitively know that a truncated gospel is defective. As Ken notes, every generation looks for a cause. Sadly, the previous generation’s cause has been their comfort and ease, but today, more young people want to devote their lives to a cause that’s bigger than themselves.
Ken believes that if we talk only of forgiveness and deliverance from hell, we’ve done our people a grave disservice. We need to talk about the fact that we are God’s children whose greatest delight is to honor the one who bought us by following him. We need to teach that the world is God’s and all people are created in God’s image, and then these leaders can applaud every desire to help, to serve, and to protect others, even if the “others” aren’t believers. Respecting the dignity of all people builds bridges of trust. In this relationship, believers have ample opportunity to share the life-saving—as well as the life-transforming—message of the gospel.
On a personal note, I would add that the whole gospel centers on the adoption of all humanity in Jesus Christ. This Trinitarian gospel declares what God has done to reconcile all people, and, indeed, the whole cosmos to himself in Christ. The evangelical invitation encourages all to experience and embrace their true identity in Christ as God' dear children. The road forward is to live out of this true identity, sharing God's love and life with *all* people (believers and non-believers), and faithfully caring for all of God's good creation, which through Jesus, in the Holy Spirit is being recreated - leading inexorably toward a new heaven and new earth.
I'm delighted that Jonahan Stepp, WCG pastor in Nashville, has written a catechism and several Advent-themed Sunday School lessons for children (the lessons can be adapted to any season of the year).
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