This past Sunday I shared my 2009 Vision message. During the message I shared some thoughts that our leadership is grappling with concerning issues that we perceive as “failures” within the evangelical community and where we have “lost” ground in regards to the gospel’s effectiveness in the world. Over the next few weeks I want to facilitate a “conversation” concerning the legitimacy of these ideas and some practical ways we could help our church engage in these possible initiatives and some creative ways to do that. Here are the eleven issues….starting thinking…praying….considering….in a few days I will roll out my thoughts on the first one.
1) The abandonment of the cities
2) The ignoring of eschatology
3) The contextualization of the gospel
4) The avoidance of community service as being a “social gospel”
5) The absence in the public school
6) The holding back of creative expression of faith in the arts
7) The failure to engage in local politics
8) The uneducated in dealing with non-moral issues (economy, ecology, etc)
9) The regrets of personal financial mismanagement
10)The allowing of uncheck post-modern thinking
11)The overused emotional driven debate style