(Tim) Yesterday, a friend sent me a satirical piece his son and
several friends had written about a bunch of new city church plants with
names like Elevation Church, Dust, The Line, Infusion Church, and
Austin City Life (see Howard Davis' comment, below). He commented, "What is really amazing is their unique
web sites all look alike (and) I bet all their unique worship services
are the same. And... they're all about being in the 'city.'"
From
reading many city
church web sites, it's clear such churches normally aren't missional if missional means faithfulness to Jesus' Great Commission commands. Most indicate no practice of rebuke, preaching God's Law, or calls to repentance. Instead, they prattle on about being "for the city" and they're positively chipper.
It's all about seeking common ground with
unbelievers. And if they mention God's perfections, it's only those
perfections that would be likely to make unbelievers feel good about
themselves and think God might not be so high and mighty and scary
after all. Christian faith and the Church are presenting as uniting believers
and unbelievers in the same brotherhood and sisterhood of man in and for the city. Convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment is out and assuring the world of our goodwill toward them in God's Name is in.
Reading Augustine's City of God
earlier today, I came across this excerpt. Augustine knew something about preaching the Gospel in the city and contextualizing the Lordship of Jesus Christ to urbane men and women world-weary in a decadent
age...
For every man, however laudably he lives, yet
yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not
fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness,
and abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either
rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less
account. But not to mention this, where can we readily find a man
who holds in fit and just estimation those persons on account of
whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniquities
and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions
threatened? Where is the man who lives with them in the style in
which it becomes us to live with them? For often we wickedly
blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them,
sometimes even of reprimanding and chiding them, either because we
shrink from the labor or are ashamed to offend them, or because we
fear to lose good friendships, lest this should stand in the way of
our advancement, or injure us in some worldly matter, which either
our covetous disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks
from losing....
And although they do not fear
them to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like
iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet those
very deeds which they refuse to share in the
commission of they often decline to find fault with, when possibly
they might by finding fault prevent their commission. They
abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of
good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or
destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good
name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need
their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the
flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people,
and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their
non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of
love. (emphasis not in original)
