3 Questions About Jesus: Amy Rozko

Amy Rozko is next to answer our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark | Ben Sternke | JR Rozko).

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You couldn’t have asked any more important questions.  Ever since I met Jesus I’ve made it my goal to get to know him better and try to be better understand him. I’ve known him over 20 years now, and I have to admit that I still don’t have him completely figured out.  Is that so surprising, though?

It would be easy for me to get existential and abstract when talking about Jesus, so let me first talk more concretely about what I know about Jesus.  It is undisputed among legitimate historians that a man named Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth approximately 2000 years ago in an area of the world now known as the nation-state of Israel.  If you can believe in the historical reality of Julius Caesar or Cleopatra then you can believe that Jesus really lived and walked on this earth.  His life was of such significance that we restarted our clocks, so to speak, to mark time before and after his life here on earth.

Jesus was the only person born fully-man yet fully-God.  I can’t fully explain what this means but let’s just say that he was absolutely unique.  He taught about God and the meaning of life with authority and in a way people could understand.  He backed up his teaching with miraculous signs that backed up his claims to be God (the most astounding being that after having been killed for crimes he did not commit he rose to life again).  Jesus claimed to be God and Jesus spoke with the power, authority and love of God.  So either he is, in fact, God in the flesh, or else he was crazy or else he was a scam artist.  The people who knew him best were willing to bet their lives on the fact that he was God and, over the past 2000 years, millions of others (including myself!) have come to the same conclusion about Jesus.

Sorry for the monologue.  Did I answer all of your questions?  I’m sure I didn’t.  I actually hope you have even more questions.  I’d love to keep exploring who Jesus is with you.

PS – I’d encourage you to begin reading the Gospel of John before we talk again if you’re curious– some great stuff about Jesus life and teachings written by one of Jesus’ very best friends.

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Amy and her husband of just over a year, JR, live in Elgin, IL (Chicagoland area) where she also works for International Teams US as the Director of Mobilization. They are an active part of Life on the Vine and really excited to be participating in the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization this coming October in Cape Town, South Africa.

Technorati Tags: 3 Questions About Jesus, Amy Rozko, Jesus Christ

3 Questions About Jesus: JR Rozko

JR Rozko approached our 3 Questions About Jesus as though it were an email from a  friend, asking: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark | Ben Sternke)
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Dear Friend,

What matters most to you?  No matter how you answer that question, I’d venture to guess that it relates to what it means to live a life of significance.  I mean, regardless of whether we think that some higher being exists or not, the mere fact that we exist compels us to wonder what life is all about – it’s really the most fundamental of life’s questions right?

The basic Christian answer to this question regarding the purpose of life is that we have been created by a God who made the world and everything in it and desires to be in relationship with us.  As I’m sure you’d agree, our world is far from perfect.  I wonder what you might name as its fundamental problems and where you think they came from?  Christians would say that all the pain and suffering in the world stems from the fact that this relationship we were created to have with God has been broken by our prideful attempts to try and be God as opposed to be in relationship with God.

This is where Jesus comes into the picture.  Jesus is both our chief example of what it means to live in relationship with God as well as the one who has restored our ability to even have that relationship.  Jesus fed the hungry, restored sight to the blind, and made crippled people walk.  He did all this to exhibit God’s desire to make all things new.  The pinnacle of this mission came by way of his death and resurrection.  He was killed because he suggested that God was ultimately in charge of the course of history and not us.  A few days after the ruling powers hung him on a cross, God triumphantly raised him from the dead.

I realize this might be difficult to believe.  It is – and it should be.  I wonder if you can pinpoint any beliefs you hold that might be difficult for someone else to believe?  I bet you can.  That’s because believing is always a matter of experience and relationship.  One never really comes to believe in God, the resurrection, or the ongoing work of God in the world until they experience it in the context of a true relationship.

Looking forward to more conversations.
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JR and his wife Amy live in Elgin, outside of Chicago.  JR works for Northern Seminary and Amy works for International Teams.  They are part of Life on the Vine, a missional community in the NW suburbs of Chicago.  JR blogs at lifeasmission.com.

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3 Questions About Jesus: Ben Sternke

This week Ben Sternke responds to our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark)

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Who is Jesus Christ? Wow, where to start. Jesus is a lot of things. First, I should say he was a man who caused quite a stir around 2,000 years ago by claiming that the God who created the entire cosmos was working through his life to save the world from itself, to make everything right.

Which sounds incredibly cliché, doesn’t it? It’s easy to find nutcases like that today. The thing about Jesus, though, was that he backed up his claims by making things right with unusual power and effectiveness: delivering people from sickness and psychological oppression, bringing freedom from guilt and shame, challenging injustice, and teaching people how to live well.

Ultimately this put him on a collision course with the religious and political authorities of his day, because they had stock in keeping people fearful and needy. But instead of fighting them, Jesus allowed them to torture and kill him. Even those closest to him didn’t understand this. Why not fight to stay alive? They thought it was over after that.

Hang with me, because here’s where the story gets crazy. He didn’t stay dead. A few days later he was alive again, in a totally new way, like he’d gone through death and out the other side. He had actually conquered death by his own death and through his resurrection opened the door for everyone to enter into a truly blessed life in God’s family.

We enter into that life by becoming an apprentice of Jesus. It might sound kooky, but you can actually know Jesus today. You can really be with him and he will teach you how to live a blessed life in God’s family, just like him.

Pretty unlikely story, huh? Yet I find myself living in it every day.

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Ben Sternke is a husband of one, a father of four, and currently pastors Christ Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a recent missional church plant. He also blogs about faith and church leadership at bensternke.com.

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3 Questions About Jesus: Jason Clark

This week Jason Clark responds to our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins)
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We all try to make sense life, what the meaning of life is, asking what is my purpose here, what is a good life, at least for myself?  And we all seem to get one shot at this life, one chance to take all that we are and invest it into our best answers to those questions.  At this time in history, and even when I was younger (I know it was some time ago), life seems about competition, survival of the fittest, and doing to others before others do it to you. Or as my gentle white haired grandma used to say, ‘take care of yourself grandson, because in this life I’ve learned no-one else will’.

It’s not that we don’t want life to be about more than this, it’s just that in our fast paced consumer world, being successful, getting ahead, looking out for yourself, is what our friends and family and so often we default to.  And even if you wanted to, you can’t jam the system, there is no way to opt out of the juggernaut for getting ahead in life. It’s the way things are, so either drop out, or get stuck in.

And the effort and investment to get ahead, is kept alive and made worth while by the prize of what we think life is about, maybe a great career, great family, holidays, living somewhere cool, and retiring early.  Where we live, what job we do and what relationships we have reveal the answers to what we really think the meaning and purpose of life is about, they are the real investments we are making, daily with all we are.  It’s our life, we are kings of our kingdom with our decision and choices, as we decide who and what we are, and what we bring into our lives, as we make a life.

Jesus was someone who understood what life was about, and decided to invest his life very differently. Instead of getting ahead, he said he had come to serve others, that his investment was into a different reality and economy, which he called ‘The Kingdom of God’. That life, this life was about investing all we have, time, energy and money, our heart, soul, body and mind in a different reality. He said that jobs, where we live and relationships are very important, we’ve got that part right, but how we invest ourselves for those aspects of life is very different.

He even told us not to worry about all these things, that the reason we worry is because we fear losing things we shouldn’t be putting our heart and soul into in the first place.  And he did more than talk about this new reality, he lived it.  Every day, every breath, every step, he invested his life in helping others see that life was about knowing God, and entering into the plans God has for us. Using our gifts, and skills, passions and interest to invest in God’s economy.  And he said that if we do that, God will give the best life we could ever have.  And he said that if we practice this life investment, our lives will continue, after death into eternity.  Jesus brought a warning too, reminding us to take care.  That where we invest our lives determines who we become now and forever, so choose wisely.

Jesus invitation seems so impossible, it was as impossible 2,000 years ago as much as it is now.  In fact people intent on investing in a way of life much like ours today, eventually put him on a cross and killed him. And as they looked at him dying with no friends, no job, no career, no success, and no status they asked him, ‘where is your God and this way of life now’?

I was 17 the first time someone explained to me who Jesu was and is, and why it mattered, and maybe if I tell you what that friend told me, it will sum up what I’m trying to say here?  My friend said that, investing my life in Jesus, taking all that I am and giving it to Him, might not make my life easier, in fact in lots of ways it would be much harder.  But he promised me that, I would have something to live for and something to die for, that there wouldn’t be a day when I wouldn’t know meaning, adventure and purpose.

I chose to make that investment, and 24 years later, I have experienced the most amazing life, with all of that and more.  The depth and richness of discovering who I am, the most amazing experience of life with others, as I daily try to invest all I have in Him, has been stunning.  I’d love to tell you more about that sometime. Choosing Jesus was the best investment I ever made with my life.  Where are you investing yours?

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Jason Clark (www.deepchurch.org.uk) is British, recently turned 40, and lives on the SW edge of London, UK. He has three teenage kids, and is celebrating 20 years of marriage to Bev later this year. He is midway through a PhD in theology at Kings College London, holds a D.Min from George Fox Seminary, and is the senior pastor of a Vineyard church that he started with his Bev 13 years ago, having been involved in Vineyard churches for 23 years in total.

Technorati Tags: 3 Questions About Jesus, Gospel, Jason Clark, Stories

3 Questions About Jesus: Cari Jenkins

This week we asked Cari Jenkins to respond to our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter?
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I was in front of my home taking down twinkle lights one year just after Christmas when I saw a young girl walking down the street towards me. She was too young to be walking alone and I noticed tears streaming down her cheeks. I ask if she needed anything two times. And two times she turned me down. She paused at the end of my driveway and I asked a third time. This time she responded with a yes. She used my phone to call someone to come get her.  Over the next hour I learned that she had run away from home the night before. Then my door bell rang. A man stood desperate at my front door. He was singularly focused, “where is my daughter!” I invited him in and watched as the two were reunited. I stood in the kitchen, giving them space and trying to keep myself composed as I was invited into this very intimate event of a relationship being restored. It was beautiful and powerful.

A friend had an old piece of furniture. It was cracked, paint was peeling and it was literally falling apart at the hinges. He didn’t see the dilapidated mess which I saw, he saw what it was originally designed to be. Over the next few months he spent hours restoring this piece of furniture. He poured over it with love, sweat and patience. Then one day I got the call, he had finished. I stopped by his home and before me was a beautiful, masterpiece. The once old chest of drawers was fully restored to its original design and it was beautiful.

Both of these stories speak of Jesus. He restores broken relationships. He restores people, like my friend restored that chest of drawers, He restores us to our original design. He restores us in our misguided beliefs and He constantly is making old things new again. Jesus, He is the one who brings restoration to this planet and to all people everywhere and His restoration is perfect and we, you and I get to share in it. It is powerful and beautiful and it constantly invites others into restoration as well.

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Cari lives in downtown San Diego, Ca where she founded The 11:29 Project. An initiative that seeks to connect people to the rest and restoration found in Jesus and advocates for the marginalized. She blogs a carijenkins.wordpress.com.

Technorati Tags: 3 Questions About Jesus, Cari Jenkins, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Stories

3 Questions About Jesus: Jesse Schroeder

Today we continue our Monday series “3 Questions About Jesus,” where  ask different people how they would explain Jesus Christ to someone who had heard about Jesus, but knew nothing about Christianity. The questions are: Who is Jesus the Christ, what has he done, and why does it matter?

I kicked off the series with last week’s installment. This week’s guest is Jesse Schroeder.
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Jesus is a person I know. If I tried to describe him, I would fail to capture what I know. Instead, I’m going to share some events in which I’ve connected with Jesus. My hunch is that maybe you’ve connected with Jesus too.

In high school, I was really angry. My questions were bigger than any proposed solutions. But “something” from “somewhere” compelled me to “believe” that Jesus is real, and that he loves me.

Later in life, when I became a teacher, I would talk with my students about their lives, and sometimes I would pray for them. Jesus was with us, and in fact some of the words I would say were actually coming from him, not me.

Sometimes my students and I would spend a Saturday cooking breakfast and playing games with neighborhood kids. If I would step back and look around the room at the smiling faces and the running feet – I could see and hear Jesus.

Before she turned 18, one my students became pregnant. She decided to keep the baby, and I was at the hospital when Landon was born. Jesus was there too.

I visit Guatemala every year. I meet children, parents, pastors and workers. We mix concrete, build homes, sing songs, and share meals. Jesus is definitely there with us too.

Most weeks, I meet with a small group of friends and we talk about life, share questions about God, and ways we can try to help each other. I definitely feel Jesus when we get together.

I’ve had many experiences with Jesus, but I will tell you about only one more. One night in college, I told Jesus that he had to show me that he was real. The next evening, I went to church, and for an hour Jesus and I talked about life. There was never another doubt that Jesus is a real person who is sharing life with me.

That’s just a few. Maybe some of those stories sounded familiar to you. I can’t describe him very well, but I know I’ve lived my life with Jesus.

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Jesse Schroeder is a teacher who lives in the Columbus, Ohio area with his wife Kel. He has been involved with the Central Ohio Emergent Cohort since 2007 and blogs at Moving Away From the Mirrors.

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Men Are In Charge Because the Bible Says So

There’s alot of sexual tension in the Church and I’m not just talking about the youth group.

One obvious aspect of gender tension in the Church is the prejudice toward men in roles of authority. I was raised in a church grounded in a fundamentalist-leaning hermeneutic. Hence, high levels of leadership – pastoral position, adult teaching positions, eldership, board members – were reserved for men. This mantle of authority trickled down the hierarchical ladder to the family as well. Men were taught to be the “spiritual leaders” of their households and women were taught to be generally supportive and submissive. In my experience this is usually perceived to mean that, ideally, the man should be the initiator and director of the spiritual activities of the home and that all family business decisions are ultimately made by the husband. (Neither of these ideas has any grounding in biblical teaching or actual reality.)

In Pentecostal churches I observed more flexibility – women commonly operated in “prophetic” roles, and, less commonly in preaching roles, but typically were still instructed to defer to their husbands in matters of governance in church and the home. Even in mainline churches where women have been ordained for many years I’ve observed a kind of “lame duck” status for a woman pastors. One woman I know pastors a Methodist church in Ohio and her congregation largely ignores her attempts to lead. While it’s extremely difficult to separate her frustration from other factors – such as the culture of Methodist churches, the personality of that particular church, and the tendency of older congregations to resist change – she herself suspects her difficulties are due partly to gender bias.

One last example: My wife is on staff at a Jewish retirement community where the rabbi is a woman and she has observed similar tensions.

Let’s face it: the single greatest obstacle to gender barriers between men and women in churches is the Bible. Ancient scripture clearly reflects a traditional patriarchal culture – and by “patriarchy” I mean male dominance by excluding women from the seats of power through various means of force (shame, restriction from education, exclusion from property ownership, restriction from representation, and, of course, violence). Moreover, while biblical attitudes toward women may be relatively liberating (compared to the beliefs of their day), compared to Modern social mores they are clearly archaic. It does not help to pretend this isn’t so.

I think a difficult yet important question for Postmodern Christians is this: Is everything affirmed in the bible universally transcendent, or is scripture (like its authors) to some extent captive to the context in which it was formed? I’m convinced of the latter.

What are some of the gender tensions you’ve noticed in churches? How does the Bible help or hurt in these situations? How do you decide which attitudes and postures affirmed in scripture are universal and culturally transcendent, and how do you decide which are culturally-bound?

Technorati Tags: Authority, Gender, Scripture, Sexuality, The Bible

Bonding vs Bridging Communities: Fear & Retribution in Fundamentalism

Last week I attended a conference hosted by a fundamentalist-leaning evangelical church. There were roughly 3000 people in attendance and I heard some of the most celebrated preachers from that particular corner of the Christian universe. Frankly, what I heard was largely disheartening. If I were to summarize the majority of the preaching, it would be this:

Jesus is the one true God who came to suffer and die in your place so you might avoid the eternal conscious torment of hell, and to think any other way about Jesus is to resign yourself to condemnation.

I’m sure each of those preachers would be delighted to know that’s what I heard. However, not only does this narrow message contain propositions that are legitimately debated in Christianity, it neglects important nuances about the teaching and work of Jesus and ignores the massive implications of Christ as the inaugurated future of hope and redemption.

Most of all, though, the way it was presented transformed the gospel from a message of liberation to one of fear and escape. Accordingly, Jesus ceases to be the person who empowers humanity to finally live into its incredible promise as the image of God, and becomes the ultimate conqueror who puts you in your place…because he loves you.

There were other ways this parochialism was constantly reinforced:

• Jesus is coming back as a “dominant and domineering” savior who will wipe out his enemies
• If you do not have a strong man preaching this message to you every week then you are in danger of failing in the Christian life and should find a new church
• If you cease to believe this message then you demonstrate you never really knew God in the first place and were always bound for hell
• If you are a woman, showing too much of your body in public is a significant betrayal of your duty to represent Jesus
• “Right doctrine is the litmus test for your life”
• God’s wrath is not only satisfied by death, but by suffering too
• People who reject penal substitution and the divinity of Christ are among the most radical and perverse members of society. L. Ron Hubbard was quoted as an example, and immediately described as, “…a man who exhibited many of the markers of pedophilia.”
• You must be able to understand and agree with an abstract concept of God (the Trinity) and a specific technical role for Jesus (penal substitutionary atonement) to be saved from hell: “You can get [the question about who Jesus is] nearly right and still end up in hell.”

Consider what kind of affect these statements might have on someone who is deeply afraid of disapproval and rejection. Or, consider how appealing they might seem to someone seeking to dominate or control others.

Preached this way, Christ and Christianity become a powerful means of keeping people in their place. This has its advantages. Forming a community around fear and guilt creates tremendous bonds among its members, even between those who are in control and those who are being controlled. The disadvantage is that it requires force and hostility to maintain, which takes its toll on the members and sets your community at odds with other communities.

During my time at the conference I read Peter Block’s book Community, and while I can’t endorse everything in it, he makes some insightful and helpful observations:

[Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein in their book Better Together] distinguish between “bonding” and “bridging” social capital. Bonding social capital are networks that are inward looking, composed of people of like mind. Other social networks encompass different types of people and tend to be outward looking – bridging social capital [...] As Putnam and Feldstein put it, “A society that has only bonding social capital will…be segregated into mutually hostile camps.”

Block goes on to insightfully point out that the only way to maintain this sort of bonding community is through retribution, law, and force.

At every level of society we live in the landscape of retribution. The retributive community is sustained by several aspects of the modern community conversation [...] the marketing of fear and fault, gravitation toward more laws and oversight, an obsession with romanticized leadership, marginalizing hope and possibility, and devaluing associational life [freely chosen voluntary associations] to the point of invisibility.

That’s fundamentalism in a nutshell.

The gospel, on the other hand, is about Christ’s eradication of barriers. Now, the Resolved preachers would agree – but they would likely say the barrier Christ eradicates is the one between the individual sinner and God. I would say it includes that, but extends pervasively to all other barriers as well – those between men and women, between races and religions, between ideologies, between humanity and the earth, etc.

Ironically, these preachers often quoted Paul’s condemnation of “another gospel” in Galatians 6 as a defense of penal substitution, (which is not the subject of that letter), but their messages were very similar to the one Paul rejected: one that creates an externally approved and exclusive religious group. Christ, on the other hand, doesn’t merely create a new and better conclave of exclusive religious adherents. That would just be another form of ancient Judaism. Christianity isn’t just a better form of Judaism. Rather, it is what God always intended to accomplish through Judaism on a cosmic scale: liberation from the destructive power of death in our everyday lives and from the paternalistic bonds of law and religion through the creation of a new and unified humanity:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  ~ Galatians 3:28 (ESV)

This is what Galatians – and the gospel itself – is all about. Not fear from danger or protection within a closed community or tightly constructed system of beliefs, but liberation from such fear, isolation, and retribution. Moreover, this is accomplished not by separating us from others, but by being a people who are distinctive because they are sent to eradicate such barriers and become what Peter block calls a “bridging community.”

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ~ Galatians 5:1

Technorati Tags: Bondage, Fundamentalism, Jesus Christ, Liberty, The Gospel

Resolved, To Believe The Best About Other Believers

I’ve been pretty critical of the preachers at Resolved (with one exception) – and I’ll have more by way of critique next week when I share some thoughts on fundamentalist churches as “bonding” communities – but I want to wrap up my series of reflections on this conference by highlighting the best of what I learned about the people there:

• They were some of the most thoughtful Christians I’ve ever encountered: That’s not to say that they’re more thoughtful than, say, Emerging Christians, but I’ve heard plenty of people paint fundamentalists as mindless automatons. That was definitely not true of the people at Resolved. These are smart folks who know their stuff – they’re just committed to a different perspective of Jesus and the faith than I am.
• They were some of the most reverent Christians I’ve ever encountered: I was genuinely moved by the level of seriousness with which they engaged worship, fellowship, and their own self-education in the faith. Admittedly, this kind of religious reverence can be inappropriate and fake – and it can be fear-based – but that’s not what I sensed last weekend. These are people who genuinely admire God, and seek to honor God. That’s a good thing.
• They believe and preach what they do out of a deep care and concern for one another: This plays into some of what I’ll write next week regarding fundamentalist communities. Based on what I observed, both in the lobby and on the stage, the people at Resolved interpret the Bible they way they do because they believe the world is dangerous and humanity’s condition is a serious threat. Hence, the message they preach is a message of warning about danger and escape toward the safety of the community. If that sounds too much like a critique, then let me add this: they preach this message because they’re deeply concerned for one another. It’s like they’re screaming about a fire in a crowded theatre or sternly rebuking a child for reaching toward a hot stove. If the preachers on the stage weren’t ministers they would have been firemen, or policemen, or soldiers – because fundamentalist theology is primarily a hermeneutic of forceful, heroic rescue.

So, for my part, I’ve decided to reaffirm a posture of first believing the best. It’s too easy to throw stones at caricatures of the Christian faith. Easier still when the targets of my projectiles disagree with me. I still have strong disagreements with them that I will continue to point out, and it’s not that I think all their motives are virtuous – nobody’s are. But it’s hard to continue judging people once you’ve met them in all their sincerity and complexity and see a small bit of yourself, and more than a fair bit of Christ, in them.

Technorati Tags: Criticism, judgment, Resolved Conference, Reverence

Resolved, To Embrace Christ as the Embodiment of Healing and Hope

I have to admit, although the people at Resolved had been a pleasure to interact with, by Saturday evening I was resigned to be continually frustrated by the preaching. Thus far I’d found the messages to be pedantic, fallacious, and repressive – not so much in content, but in the way the story of Christ had been conveyed and applied.

For a brief few hours that all changed Saturday night when C.J.Mahaney took the stage.

I was taken by surprise when he began by drawing attention to a woman and daughter he had met in the airport. They were finally able to attend the conference after being held back for several years due to the degenerative illness of the husband/father. Sadly, he had recently died and, though grieving, they decided to attend the conference this year in his honor. C.J. was deeply moved by their story and in front of 3000 people honored their loss and offered them comfort. It was the first display of compassion I’d seen thus far at Resolved. It was a genuinely powerful moment.

He then began his message, titled “I wish I’d been there,” launching into the first truly expositional teaching of the weekend. He read from the story of the Gadarene Demoniac in Mark Chapter 5, effectively immersing us into the social fabric of the time, the interpersonal tragedy of the affliction, and the inherent suffering and triumph of the story itself. He spoke with sincerity and expressiveness, with humor and creativity, and with a powerful sense of dramatic suspense. He was the only great storyteller of the weekend.

He addressed the obvious difficult subject – whether or not Christians can be demonically afflicted – handling it constructively and reasonably, without ridiculing opponents or propping up straw men. He did not try to scare us into believing he was right. In fact, quite the opposite: his tone and tenor he made it clear that standing with Christ was the safest possible place to be, and that nothing need be feared in the light of the gospel.

It was nothing short of a tour de force of gospel preaching.

Mahaney pointed out how this amazing story of deliverance demonstrated Christ’s authority to save people from all manner of sin and oppression; how we are all – like the demoniac – ruled by the prevailing powers that work death and destruction in our lives through our own brokenness; and, most importantly, how the infective mission of the liberating gospel was there too, in Jesus’ commission to send the man back to his own town to be a witness of this new, liberating Kingdom.

It was the gospel and it was all there in the story, plain as day and easy to see. C.J. was there in the story as well – he pointed himself out several times in the image of the demoniac – but I was there too…and so were you. Indeed, Mahaney started his message by saying, “I wish I’d been there,” but by the time he was finished we all had been. Each and every person in that room had just seen Jesus – the living embodiment of the healing, hope, and power of the Kingdom of God – and we would never be the same. It was now clearer that through Jesus all bonds could be broken, all wounds could be healed, and the distant and long-suffering promise of a truly good and liberating life had rushed in from the future, crashing headlong into the powers of death and oppression.

I had been sitting in a kind of lobby area, listening over the sound system and taking notes on my laptop, but halfway through I was compelled to get up and walk into the main hall so I could see for myself what was happening on stage. I was transfixed for the next 30 minutes or so. The message he gave us wasn’t merely audible. He actually seemed to bear the weight of it on his person and so preached it with his whole being. The experience changed me.

There was nothing resembling an alter call, and I don’t really even believe in alter calls anymore, but afterward it was all I could do to keep from rushing toward the stage and falling on my face before God in gratitude. It took all my powers of restraint to keep from disturbing the conference at the renewed and deeper realization that the Kingdom had come in the person of Christ.

Now anything was possible.

Technorati Tags: C.J. Mahaney, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Mark, Preaching, Resolved Conference