| Home > e100 > Essential 100 -- Outsider-friendly or outsider-centered? |
| Essential 100 -- Outsider-friendly or outsider-centered? | | Date Created: Apr 27, 2005, 08:48 AM |
78 — Wednesday April 27 — Acts 15
Wow. I don't remember disagreeing this much with the author of Essential 100 since deep in the Old Testament. He tells the story of Bill Hybels' early experiences, a time when a church dismissed him from the post of Youth Pastor because his group was attracting the wrong kind of kids. Our author then asks the question "Who is the church for?" with predictable and inclusive answers: it's not for the religiously correct people it's for the outsiders, isn't it?
Well, no, actually, it isn't. If the question is "Who is the church for?" isn't the real answer that it's for God? Have we lost that focus? Acts 15 does not say that the church is for the people; it's inclusiveness consists of this: that anyone who is ready to follow the Lord Jesus Christ should be welcomed and they don't need to become just like us.
But there is more to the Acts 15 compromise than inclusiveness. There are demands as well. (The chapter is not, of course, about outsiders who are unbelievers, but those from a Gentile background who have committed themselves to Christ.) New believers from a pagan Gentile background do not need to turn themselves into Jews but neither may they remain pagan Gentiles (15:19-31). I wonder if we've misunderstood Bill Hybel's critics: were they really worried that church was attracting outsiders or were they worried that the church was coming to be made up of people whose lives were no different from unbelievers? |
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