This isn't news, but some churches are in trouble - whether realized or not - because they're following a model requiring that they exist to satisfy the appetites of causally connected consumers instead of making resilient disciples transformed by the cross to embrace self-denial
The approach isn't about contextualization, being missional, or belonging before believing. It's not about Kingdom hospitality that welcomes all as we would welcome Jesus. It's about a posture of pleasing people rather than pleasing God. Rather than loving God supremely so people
...learn the way of love, rather than making God's glory the highest aim and savoring his presence the greatest delight, rather than trusting simple means of grace instead of complex productions, and trusting the compelling communication of Scripture's intersection with our lives
... some tend to imagine that just the right blend of technique, marketing, branding, or scintillating show will somehow make the Gospel more acceptable. It won't. It's always offensive even as it heals. It's a scalpel and it will leave a mark. It both confronts and comforts.
I don't know how else to put this, but the Best News you'll ever hear, the truth that sets people free, might sound a lot like some pretty bad news to start with. The Church's job is to make the message clear, not acceptable - only God can do that. That's no excuse for arrogance
or other forms of religious jackassery performed in the name of being radical. On the contrary. As I noted at the outset, the idea is making disciples that follow rather than audiences to be entertained. There's nothing wrong with entertainment. That's just not the mission.
I'm not talking about some kind of self-righteous, high-walled, enter at your own risk religious club - that's just another version of the consumer approach, a niche-marketed convocation for the reactionary withdrawal from everything sect. No, the thing is this:
Your church should welcome all the way Jesus welcomes, treating every guest as Jesus himself. But we offer all the true Christ, the whole Christ, and that's also true for those who say they know this Christ. Because that Christ did not come to give you the American dream...
... make you successful, reinforce your racial, ethnic, or political idolatries, fly the flag of your church or denomination, or highlight your theological tradition's main points. Nope. As Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
It's going to get ugly. Sacrifices will be made. Priorities will be challenged. Relationships will be tested. The art of forgiveness and mercy will be cultivated. Fires will be lit. The Spirit will go through your heart on search and destroy missions because God is more committed
to our eternal holiness than our temporary happiness. He will tear and he will heal. He will draw us near and he will steal away where we can't find him. He will say things we can't explain and he won't explain himself either, and all of this without apology.
This isn't new. He's not changing even if we do. He's not disillusioned with us as he had no illusions to begin with. He's also infinitely more committed to us than we are to him and this is because he has this relentless, yes reckless, love that led him to the cross...
... where we discovered what love and life looked like in the most unanticipated, unexpected, dumbfounding demonstration of compassion history has ever seen. And when he did that, he not only did it for us, he did it to us. That cross? Not a decoration. It's a way of life.
That may not make a lot of people happy. It might empty churches before it fills them. I get it. But it is, without doubt, our only hope against the ravages of death and darkness. Deep darkness. Abyss stuff. It's all we've got. It's also enough. See that cross? Rise and Follow.

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More from @DPCassidyTKC

26 Dec 21
I am continuously shocked by conversations with people on the so-called religious right who are parroting Nietzchean approaches to power and Darwinian approaches to survival. They don't seem to realize how secularized their expression of faith has become. This is a colossal...
failure of pastoral work, discipleship in the Gospel, and secularization of the church's very mission. While such failures happen on both left & right, the right seeks to maintain that it is a bastion of theological orthodoxy; that is far from the case.
The renewal in pastoral work, deepening faith, and rooting the Church in the teaching of Jesus on the ethics of power, weakness, the marginalized, & the Kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of politics and economics, is past critical to 'grave'. @Peter_Wehner @DavidAFrench
Read 6 tweets
21 Dec 21
The incarnation means God chose weakness, poverty, the margins, being a refugee, false charges, & state inflicted violence. He chose what we’d flee because we’d chosen to avoid him. He did this for love, a sacrificial love that reaches into our sorrow to take us to his splendor.
The incarnation means that there is no aspect of our humanity which is outside the scope of redeeming mercy. There is no dimension of the human person not stained by sin but neither is there any place left unhealed by his embrace. Reconciliation & Union with God are ours by faith
The incarnation means the infinite has entered the finite to restore & transform it from the inside out, to start small & hidden, weak & vulnerable, but rise to make all things new after subverting every claim we make to be our own gods, saving ourselves.
Read 5 tweets
1 Dec 21
Human dignity is not something we possess by mere visibility, nor is it a status granted by others. Christian anthropology notes that all people are God's image-bearers, a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory & honor. We don't bestow dignity. We recognize it.
This is true for the preborn and the incapacitated, the elderly and the impoverished. Christian anthropology, rooted in Scripture, resists the vandalism of all persons without reference to nation, faith, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic status, or 'utility'.
This view places us outside the circle of the Peter Singer set who certainly reject this Christian vision. Those who decry it sometimes call it into service when they feel threatened. On the other hand, many Christians don't understand the radical implications of it for...
Read 7 tweets
21 Oct 21
A great discussion has been launched by @KaitlynSchiess on the issue of what constitutes leaving Evangelicalism - the sociological & theological, as well as the relational, personal, and traditional issues involved. This has me thinking again about identity of this emerging tribe
It's one thing to say who we aren't and point to what we've left, but that's not going to identify who we are and where we're going. "Evangelical" has its roots in the Evangel - the message - and was an honorable term until it was hijacked by its old nemesis fundamentalism and...
...kidnapped by politics. Now its a sullied term that is of little use except perhaps to those who actually prefer the new reality. IF you think new language is needed, what would you propose as a term describing the (older) evangelical (non-fundamentalist/non-trapped by party)..
Read 8 tweets
21 Aug 21
People refuse the COVID vaccine for a number of reasons, BUT when I hear someone say they are doing this because 'God will protect me' they are deeply mistaken and in the clutches of false teaching on nature, grace, & providence. This false spirituality is found in...
various forms of fundamentalism, especially extreme charismatics/pentecostals. The problem is a failure to note the MEANS God uses to provide for, govern, nourish, & protect his people. The means are 'ordinary' - work, civil authorities, planting & harvesting food, medicine...
and other gifts that engage us & our response to his gifts. Vax refusers get physicals, take meds, and, if sick, go to the hospital - thankfully! - but does that mean they're not 'trusting God' anymore? They go to work and earn a living. Why not just pray food gets left...
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3 Aug 21
The @MikeCosper pod on Mars Hill @CTmagazine is staggering & painfully helpful. He's right to point out that a wider phenomenon is in play, that it's more than a single movement or church issue. In 2014 I was at a Liberate Conference at Coral Ridge when @TullianT was asked...
during a Pastor's Q&A Session, 'How do you avoid becoming a Celebrity Pastor?" He replied, 'You don't. You WANT that! You do everything you can to be a celebrity and build your brand...' @PaulTripp @ScottyWardSmith & Steve Brown on the platform with him looked stunned. I was...
...sitting next to my ATX pal John Ratliffe and we were both stunned too. We shouldn't have been. Like Mark Driscoll, Tullian wouldn't accept the help of older wiser men and in the end, the cataclysmic outcome was devastating to many. Thank God @RobPacienza is at Coral Ridge...
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