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{"id":2827,"date":"2007-07-27T00:30:30","date_gmt":"2007-07-27T05:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2007\/07\/27\/friday-is-for-friends-50\/"},"modified":"2007-07-27T00:30:30","modified_gmt":"2007-07-27T05:30:30","slug":"friday-is-for-friends-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/07\/27\/friday-is-for-friends-50\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday is for Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

How have modernity and postmodernity distorted how we understand the gospel? Jon Wilson, in his Why Church Matters<\/a><\/em>, asks this question in chp 7: \u201cDiscipleship as Human Flourishing.\u201d And we start with a bang:
\n\u201cAt these times, the church behaves as if the real mission of the church is to get people to a onetime event that \u2018converts\u2019 them to faith, erases their guilt, and guarantees their salvation for eternity\u201d (87). \u201cBut everything in that sentence \u2014 converting to Christ, erasing guilt, and eternal salvation \u2014 is wrong, devastatingly wrong, when it is disconnected from the telos <\/em>that gives it proper meaning and direction\u201d (87).
\nWhat to do? How did we get here? How have we missed the telos <\/em>\u2014 the final aim (kingdom) \u2014 of the gospel in our preaching of the gospel?
\nHere\u2019s one of my ideas about evangelism today: the single-most influential mistake made in evangelism is basing one\u2019s appeal<\/em> on the \u201cadvantage\u201d or \u201cbenefit\u201d or \u201creward\u201d one gets if one believes. Not to deny that there are rewards, but watch Jesus preach. It is that we start there and work back to a reasonable, evocative, compelling set of steps that will allow someone to get that reward. It has to do with emphasis, and it has to do with how to shape disciple-focused evangelism. Thoughts?
\n\u201cOur impulse is to abandon the language of conversion, faith, and so on when we recognize the miscommunication that is taking place. But following that impulse is a mistake\u2026\u201d (87-88).
\nThe rest of this chp explores our cultural context \u2014 modernity and postmodernity \u2014 how these have distorted the gospel and how we can make disciples in both a modern and postmodern context.
\nThis chp is worth the price of the book.
\nWhile Wilson, in his attempt to keep this chp manageable, might be accused of simplifying, the overall thrust of his insights are treasures to explore.
\nThe gospel preaches a telos <\/em>that comes to us by way of a gift, the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
\nModernity distorts by promising control and freedom; postmodernity dissolves the capacity to make meaning of life, rendering us with power but no meaning to control it. The gospel then is distorted when we focus too much on freedom and appeal constantly to consumerist approaches. In postmodernity the gospel is distorted by focusing too one-sidedly on community.
\nGenuine making of disciples: \u201cThe mission of the church is to witness to the kingdom by being disciples and making disciples of Jesus Christ\u201d (93). This statement challenges both modernity\u2019s and postmodernity\u2019s way of capturing the gospel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"