Friday, January 28, 2005

Stimulation

So what was it about Jesus that was so different than today's American evangelicals?

It was redemptive stimulation. Not just the attempt to stimulate morality, or some outward focused shell of morality. But redemptive stimulation. His three years in the public eye were about stimulating people into real living, real life. Where are we missing that opportunity today? Where are we getting it right?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When driving out in West Texas, waving at passing cars is common. You know the wave, seen in the Frost Bank commercial, is usually just 2 fingers lifted off the top of the steering wheel. Often, you get one in return.
Too often, I feel we Christians are too like drivers on that little FM road. We courteously greet one another, then we're gone. We get our Sunday fix of greetings, then off we go to other worlds.

Arnie Adkison said...

Oh yeah! My junior high coach and bus driver Tommy Thornburg used to lift his entire hand off the wheel, and just about the time you thought he was going to wave he would actually flip the bottom three fingers down and to the left and end up only pointing at people...okay, that's probably hard to visualize. But you're right. Changing the culture of a church on a Sunday morning is difficult. What do you think we can do to recode the DNA of a church to get to something deeper than the West Texas wave (WTW)?