Monday, September 05, 2005

More on provocative

Just been thinking about the provocative church idea again and it struck me - most evangelism is based on the assumption that if we can bring people closer to the 'magnet' so to speak that they will naturaly be drawn in. A provocative church surely works on the same priniciple - "boy that's differemt, lets take a closer look, oh no i am being drawn into some strange forcefield." and before you know it you have another convert - there is one problem with this it assumes that all people are basicaly "ferrous" in compostion to be drawn towards the strange attractor. Whil Augustine would probably agreew ith this and his thougths about a God shapped hole. my question is are people like that. in the bginning of his book Tomlin talks about a guy dying of cancer who just did not care about the Chrisitan God. Surely then any amount of provocative evangelsim would seek to attract a person who just does not care. While i agree that there should be soemthing inherrently attractive about the church - i don't think it is enough.
Maybe we should just forget about evangelsim all together and just start sharring the Good news - i think it is more than playing with words to suggest that we would be far beeter of as a church recognising that When Jesus said he is Good News for the world he did not just mean get converetd. I suspect he mena tit is good news for the world regardless of whether we choose to believe it or not. the church (as Christ's Body) then is called also to be good news. how often can people say that of us - that we are good news to a neighbourhood or a town. I suspect that given the sitation in the US at present many churches are being good news in the light of a disaster b- but what about being good news when everything is calm and normal. I guess it's not about converting people but rather being good neighbours - people who are a joy to live next too - maybe then people will enquire but that is a bonus - but in the mean time i am hopping to beceome good news where i am.
I think i am raving a bit - but then i am allowed too

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