Threads from Henry's Web

Sometimes even when I’m way to busy to be blogging, at least on my personal blog, I just see so many things that point the same direction that I just have to write. This post didn’t start with this quote, but it says something I like to read:

If our denomination has lost the boldness to be fools, then we do not need new initiatives or new advertising campaigns. We need to recapture our lost zeal.

That’s from John Meunier, a United Methodist local church pastor and blogger.

This follows on some discussion of radical discipleship over on GenXRising, who says:

If we, as Christians, are really worried about declining numbers of the faithful in this land, we should practice a more robust form of discipleship.

Ouch! You mean we have to mean what we say? Say it ain’t so!

This all relates closely to a book I’m publishing, The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black, a professor of Greek and New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Indeed, it does appear that there are things on which Methodists and Baptists can agree. [Cue the shock and amazement.]

To go back to the question, however, here’s what I wrote on my company’s blog right after contracting to publish Dave Black’s book, my third of three points:

Finally, this book hit the spot because I’m frustrated with the professional church. Practically every pastor I know is frustrated as well. They are wondering why church members don’t get to work, why they don’t serve one another, why they don’t share their faith, and why they fill pews (occasionally, even!) rather than getting involved.

I like to call myself a passionate moderate–just look at the blog header. I’ve discussed before what I mean by combining those two terms. I never mean that we don’t need to really be who we are called to be. That’s going to take some willingness to get radical on at least one point–faithfulness to what we know is right.