Beyond mere belief to life transformation and community demonstration:some recent musings on what it means to be “gospel people”

Lately I’ve been pondering what it means to be “gospel people.”  I’ve been trained in an academic seminary and gone to churches like College Church of Wheaton that celebrate the historical gospel of Jesus Christ.  One of Kent Hughes’main admonitions to me before I church planted was to make sure I knew what the gospel was and to stand and fall on that alone.  So I’ve been steeped in the knowing side of the gospel quite well.  And from that,I’ve taken that the “gospel”is the name of our grand redemptive story spoken of in Scripture.  I also have come to see that the gospel is a living and powerful force that moves around the world and produces its own fruit a la Colossians 1:6.  But lately I’ve been thinking about the gospel even more —especially since I’ve left mainstream evangelical church culture in pursuit of more authentic,organic and missional expressions of spirituality and community.

As I’ve been pondering what it means to be “gospel people,”I’ve come to the following realization:if we keep treating the gospel merely as something that needs to be properly believed and lazily proclaimed,then we will fall short of becoming the gospel people that Jesus saved us to be.   Can I speak honestly now?  Our Western Church overvalues theological correctness,a.k.a. “orthodoxy.” That’s why we’re so skiddish when it comes to Catholocism,mainline denominations,sects and cults. We don’t know how to handle or regard some of them:are they IN or OUT? That’s why our heroes are the Reformers,but we only talk about their theology and not their actual lives —since that would lessen the impact.   The charge of “heresy”is the worst accusation for the evangelical —worse than “hypocrite.” So,consciously or not,much of church life is spent helping people believe the right things:new believer discipleship,sunday school,training times,sunday messages.  That’s where all the money being collected and spent is going:to “training”or belief management.  Or to state it another way: most of Western discipleship is aimed at getting people to hear and believe the correct version of our gospel.

The problem is that Jesus didn’t do ministry like this.  He didn’t even preach a consistent gospel message like we do in terms of content (outside of the Kingdom of God is at hand;repent and believe the gospel!).  He calls people to a Kingdom and a King —not to a  certain body of knowledge —unless you consider the Sermon on the Mount a “gospel proclamation.”  He didn’t value precision and accuracy in his teaching as He consistently uses hyperbole and parables to convict and confuse people.  And He turned His back on the crowds and easy-belief followers since “He knew their hearts”(John’s gospel).  Instead of increasing his ancient facebook friend list,He goes the opposite way of making it hard for people to be His friend!   His style is quite the opposite of what we do today of trying to be relevant and likable.

When it comes to what Jesus passed on to His disciples,Jesus didn’t instruct us to merely get people to hear and believe our correct version of the gospel either.  True,He told his disciples to teach.  But if we want to be exact,Jesus taught his disciples to “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you”in Matthew 28:18-20.   There is a big difference between teaching for education and teaching for life transformation.  I believe the latter is a big thing missing in the West.  Most pastors,preachers and disciplers wrongly assume that informing people the right things to believe will automatically lead to life transformation.  It does not.   I know because I was one of these people who wanted to serve spiritual meat on Sundays:veritable gourmet gospel meals (unlike “other”churches that serve the “light”stuff!). I took pride in what I whipped up every Sunday.  But I didn’t even know that I was unintentionally damning people towards greater judgment by just teaching them to know instead of teaching them to obey!  To this day,I regret doing that.

The more I read Scripture,the more I see that the gospel is not a hobby or pastime.  It is not even a set of belief lines that mark the shape of what brand of Christianity we possess.  It is the reality of the Kingdom:the living force alive and well in all who call Jesus their King.  The people in the bible itself are “all-or-nothing”with the gospel.  It either defines them completely and,hence,permeates who they are,or they reject it knowingly (atheists and agnostics) or unknowingly (cultural christians).  There is no dual citizenship;it’s the Kingdom or the world.  I think about the people (whose names we know AND don’t know!) who carried the gospel everywhere throughout the known world in the book of Acts.  I think about the people Paul mentions in his letters who risk life and limb for him.  I think about the Hebrews 11 hall of faith.  I think about the faithful people in the Tribulation of John’s Revelation.   The gospel is EVERYTHING for these people.  The reason for their existence is found in the gospel:jobs,marriage or singleness,relationships,earthly possessions,life and death —all dictated by the gospel.

On the other hand,I don’t see anything close to what we,Western Christians,do as “gospel people”who are content to merely believe,sing about and pass on our version of right things.  The people who are focusing on right doctrine in the bible are the Pharisees and Sadducees.  And according to Jesus,this overemphasis on the believing-doctrine-part has led to an underemphasis on lifestyle.   Hypocrisy (as Neil Cole aptly put it) is the far worse crime in Jesus’mind than heresy.   The way we do and live the gospel in the West has encouraged a pandemic spread of the hypocrisy disease. And we don’t even know that we are in direct disobedience to the Great Commission.

I’m realizing that our Western Churches go seriously wrong in overemphasizing the lowest bar of BELIEVING the gospel:i.e.,one-time mental and verbal assent of the gospel.  Jesus’prescribed response to His gospel message in Mark 1 was faith and repentance:“The Kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe the gospel.”   TRUE BELIEVING as Jesus is getting at here involves faith (an ongoing,absurd trust that flies against common sense and the world of the seen [Hebrews 11:6]) and repentance (an ongoing,death to self and walking towards the life of Christ) —not just a certificate of a confirmation or new believer’s class,or a card saying you’re a Reformed Baptist,pre-millenial,post-tribulational follower of Christ.  Repenting and having faith in the King’s gospel is what the people of Scripture demonstrate and pass on to others.  And this early DNA was the stuff of viral movements.  The process of obeying the living word —not the content of it —was powerful to multiply.

Given Jesus’preaching example and the content of his command itself,I think we would do much better to emphasize not [easy] BELIEVING and PREACHING the gospel,but rather emphasize LIVING and DEMONSTRATING the gospel.  While I know they are not mutually exclusive,few seem to ever get beyond belief and mere verbal testimony to life transformation and testimony/demonstration. Something needs to change.  When I talk to not-yet-Christian friends here,I tell them that’s the kind of church or spiritual family we strive to be.  We don’t meet every week or in a building.   We don’t follow dress codes or right wing politics.  We see our city as our church–the secular venue for that which is sacred.   We are tired of talk,of rituals and cultural aspects of the faith.  We want to integrate work,family,friendships,possessions,time,community,politics,…EVERYTHING with our Jesus-imitating spirituality.  And I tell them that we’ve not done a good job of it,and have much to repent for.   And you know what?  People I’ve lately talked with,get it.  And they respect it.  They want to hear more.  Because they have rarely —if at all–seen disciples who are different enough to make a difference (as our community here calls it).  I know this sounds self-congratulatory;I don’t mean it to be.  But I am increasingly more convinced that the world has not seen enough REAL-DEAL,transformed disciples who are exercising true faith and repentance in the gospel…disciples who are LIVING out and demonstrating the gospel.   Isn’t this worth spelling out more?  Isn’t this worth making our goal?

Unfortunately,in our town,there are so called “Christians”who rejoice in calling homosexuals “queers”and “fags”—thinking that their gospel is real and proudly making their liberal use of these monikers as a litmus test for whether or not I was legit and believed the real gospel they believed.  Pardon me,but this is big,fat,smelly bullshit@#! It’s not at all what Jesus DID,let alone W.J.W.D. (what Jesus would do).  They don’t even realize they are more lost than the people they condemn b/c of the illusion of safety they have as “believers”who believe in a different Jesus than the bible teaches.  Bad christology.  Bad missiology.  But the incongruity between stated belief and life testimony doesn’t stop there. There are also alleged Christians who try to manipulate politicians and public sentiment by condemning abortion and parading how “pro-life”they are.  I myself am convinced God is pro-life,but I don’t see these paraders putting their life where their poster board is: if you care so much about “life,”why are YOU not the first ones in line to adopt the unwanted children of those women who did the “right thing”and carried their children to term for adoption?   Or why are you not befriending and assisting single moms? Answer?  B/c most of these Christians are not as “pro-life”as they claim they are,and the gospel is not as integrated into their being as it needs to be –reinforcing my main point:there is too much talk and not enough life change in most Christians.  We need less talkers:less preachers,less politickers,less boundary-dividers,less Pharisees in our midst. Wouldn’t love for the poor and the lost go so much farther than politicking and controlling?  Those latter are the weapons of this world,not of those who profess faith in Jesus.

I was talking to a not-yet-Christian friend of mine at the cafe the other day,and this point came out.  It spoke volumes to her when I said that although our spiritual community has voted along different political lines,we embrace God’s heart for life.  I pointed out two families among us that have adopted pairs of children of different ethnicity,knowing that they would most likely struggle from being drug-exposed in their mothers’wombs.  I told her that the cafe we all work at has intentionally looked to hire single moms b/c our county has the second highest teen pregnancy rate in all of Arizona.  She was not used to so-called “Christians”living life in this way.  But the door is wide open for us to talk about Jesus and the gospel.  Why?  Because there are people in our community who live out and demonstrate the gospel —not just subscribe to it or profess it in mere words.

Truth be told,transformed disciples are so unusual that people are scratching their heads.   Many are completely drawn in.  Others are not sure what to make of us —“why would people move from far away to this small town?  Do they have an angle?  I heard they are devout people.  Is this a religious coup or something?”  Some confusions and rumors like these are being spread.   But most see how the spiritual community has blessed the town,generated hope,strengthened the larger community,and stood for love,truth and justice.   They know we seek the peace and prosperity of the city.  And so,they want to hear more:who are we?  why are we here?  what makes us tick?  Or in short,our lives and our demonstration of good news has paved the way for our proclamation of it.

We don’t have things figured out by any stretch of the imagination.  We continue to learn lessons and have to relearn them.   But we have learned the importance of personal transformation and community demonstration for the sake of proclaiming the gospel. We have no witness without it.  IT IS A NON-NEGOTIABLE —even if we have “proven”training and tools at our disposal.  The messenger is the most important part of communicating the message —not the packaging of our message. Theologians continue to say otherwise,but my experience and other missionaries’experience say differently.  We must show and demonstrate GOOD NEWS for the fine people of our city.  It needs to be part of us.  It is not enough to have “theologically correct”beliefs.  It’s not even enough to preach the gospel to the lost because Jesus said to.  Better is this:preaching the gospel in word and deed because it is WHO WE ARE…and because it is WHO GOD IS. One has power and authenticity.  The other does not.   One is more biblically faithful and common.  The other is not.

The world is dying to see and befriend disciples who are different enough to make a difference!  Time for less talk,and more living out  … because gospel people truly live and love the gospel —not just believe and talk about it.