Disinfecting or Discipling?

Have you ever felt the urgency that you MUST share something or pop?

Finally!   Finally!  A book has been written that states what I consider to be a clear portrait of the church today!  What I couldn't define in my own mind with my own words has been beautifully defined by a young man named David Platt.

This book makes me want to dance a jig and yell, "See, I'm NOT crazy! Some one else sees dead churches."  {Don't judge me}  LOL!

We are disinfecting instead of discipling.   Please do not grow weary with my book quotes.  It is just that I read so much.   Words and ideas that touch my soul need to be shared or I'll burst.  That statement is no less true for the explanation this young author writes in his book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream. 

Disinfecting Christians from the world involves isolating followers of Christ in a spiritual safe-deposit box called the church building and teaching them to be good.  Success in the church is defined by how big a building you have to house all the Christians, and the goal is to gather as many people as possible for a couple of hours each week in that place where we are isolated and insulated from the realities of the world around us.  When we gather at the building, we learn to be good.  Being good is defined by what we avoid in the world.  We are holy because of what we don't participate in (and we may be the only organization in the world defining success by what we don't do).  We live decent lives in decent homes with decent jobs and decent families as decent citizens.  We are decent church members with little impact on the world.

Discipling is much different.  It involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others.  The world becomes the focus and success is gauged by not how many we can get into our buildings but on how many are leaving our buildings to take on the world...all of a sudden, holiness is defined by what we do instead of what we do not.

How many Christians do you know who live like this?   I suspect not nearly enough.

To be continued...