T. David Beck: The Simple Way of Jesus

"I have no intention of stepping foot in a church. Ever. For any reason." That's the conviction of an increasing number of people in Western culture. Europe is a little ahead of America in secularization, and in many ways we can look at Europe to see what America is on its way to becoming. With that in mind, what J. D. Greear writes in his new book Gaining by Losing is arresting (p. 30): A British friend of mine, Steve Timmis cites a recent study in Great Britain in which 70 percent of Brits declare that they have no intention of ever attending a church service for any reason. Not at Easter. Not for marriages. Not for funerals or Christmas Eve services. For more than two-thirds of the people in Great Britain, nothing will carry them naturally into a church. In light of this, Steve comments:  That means new styles of worship will not reach them. Fresh expressions of church will not reach them. Alpha and Christianity Explored courses will not reach them. Great first im...

On this sunny Friday, I would like to ask a question about who we are as Christians. In contemporary circles, we Christians like to talk about being “missional.” That usually means we want to make it a high priority to make a difference in the world through acts of compassion, mercy, and justice. I lead a missional church. We often remind ourselves that we are there for the “89%.” That’s the 89% of people in the Sacramento region who don’t attend church. We are convinced that the church is perhaps the only organization that exists for the sake of the people who don’t belong to it. As much as I embrace and participate in the missional movement in today’s church, I often wonder whether we have pushed the missional question deeply enough. It’s easy to make “missional” something we do rather than who we are. Church drifts into becoming about the 11%, with the 89% being served only to make the 11% feel better about themselves. I have sometimes called this “churchianity.” How ca...

In today’s Friday Soulfest (for more on Friday Soulfest, see below), I want to talk about one of the most fascinating discoveries I made when I was doing research to write Luminous . It can lead to a profound shift in our thinking. As I was writing, I remember pondering how sin wrecked God’s world, and he went on a mission to make everything right. I knew theologically that part of this mission was the Father sending the Son to become a human being. As I was chewing on that, I looked again at John 3:16-17. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Then I wondered, “Doesn’t this word ‘sent’ show up in other things Jesus said?” I found a reference. And then another one. I ended up going through all 21 chapters of John, marking every time Jesus made some comment about being sent by the Father. ...