We’ve heard plenty about Swine Flu – its potency now seems to be waning, while the media-virus continues to spread like its the only thing the news wants to report on. That along with a conversation I had the other day with several church planters got me thinking about the nature of the gospel and the American Church.
1st Question: Is the gospel a virus?
2nd Question: If so, is the church in America spreading the contagious gospel virus?
3rd Question: If not, is the American Church really spreading the gospel?
Last Christmas, I wrote about the message of God becoming a “virus of peace” that began in the stables of a Jewish city (no swine there I’m guessing) and the contagion spread into the hearts and minds of people out to the vast reaches of the Roman Empire until it collapsed under its weight. Even the Emperor Constantine knew his best political strategy was to adopt the virus of love and peace and mutate it into his own version. After the anti-virus, Christians were no longer threats to the Empire, they were the strongest supporters and defenders of it. The HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH was born.
But it wasn’t just Constantine who thought he could weild and redirect the voracious gospel disease, we see the gospel spread to other parts of the world, and at times it is derailed and sterilized into a philosophy, or an institution, or a culture (not the kind in a petri dish). An often referenced quote of mine by Pricilla Shrier,
In the first century in Palestine, Christianity was a community of believers. Then Christianity moved to Greece and became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome and became an institution. Then it moved to Europe and became a culture. And then it moved to America and became a business.
Now, I believe that the gospel has picked up important things along the way, but I think too often it has adopted to the culture, instead of adapting to the culture. Here in America, if we as a culture assume a position of business, then the gospel virus should subvert and infuse the business world with all the revolutionary power of the first century gospel – not simply become a consumer-religion.
The virus, to spread, must learn to adapt – meaning those infected with God’s good news must learn to reimagine what it means to be contagious. If the gospel isn’t spreading, we should wonder if the church has not become itself the anti-virus. I hear all the time those who say, “I love Jesus – but I hate the Church.” I don’t think there should even be a difference between the two.
My question I ask myself and those who are part of the underground network is: “What if it works?” What if the way we live for Christ now works – and people’s lives are changed forever. What if it works – and a cascading population of millions becomes sick with the virus of God’s peace in this city… What IF its a movement that cannot be contained by the religious elite, the scholars, or the politicians of our world today? It no longer is a tame, resting lion, but a fierce beast charging after darkness and like Aslan, covering the world in Good.
Here are a few thoughts on the shape of this new, strange virus, this Kingdom Flu I’m seeing beginning to take out unsuspecting Americans:
- a cooperative spirit – willing to work side-by-side with others, Christian and otherwise, to see God’s work accomplished in this city.
- a fever of boldness – bravery and abandonment to a cause that transcends fearfulness.
- not sweating the small stuff – God’s mission to transform the whole city is the primary goal that brings together God’s Church. The Whole Church brings the Whole Gospel to the Whole City.
- a sneeze of churches – churches that spread not by addition (one church planting another church every 3-5 years) but one church’s love becoming so contagious that it’s people are penetrating every nook and cranny of society, and seeing myriad churches begin simultaneously.
millertalbot 9:07 am on June 19, 2009 Permalink
any revolution that lacks a alternate story is not a revolution
and our story, regardless of how different it is, is sterile if it doesn’t lead to revolution
peace