Comments on: Creating a Church to Change Culture http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/ Church Planting, Technology & Culture Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:17:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Jay Reimer http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-66669 Jay Reimer Mon, 21 May 2007 21:08:20 +0000 http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-66669 Great post, Drew. I've been thinking about this lately after a few conversations with Tom myself. It seems to me that when trying to reach people with apologetics, you'll encounter the intial objections that are giving them the biggest stumbling blocks to belief (held with varying degrees of emotional force), but when a solid and coherent challenge is given to these objections, they will oftentimes fall back on a smokescreen objection. The smokescreen might be something that doesn't actually bother them that much, but if they are deadset on "supressing the truth in unrighteousness", these are convenient fallback positions. The interesting thing is that the person who has scientific objections will fall back on the more emotional, story/narrative-driven (the coherence part of the equation) objections as their smokescreen, while the more emotional/story/narrative type of person we think of when we think of postmoderns today will fall back on the scientific objections, because at the end of the day, we have not done a good enough job answering those scientific objections with the wealth of answers that we possess! When we present this faith that coheres, corresponds and correlates in all of its richness, and authenticate it by our living example, that is a powerful witness. Now if we would just meet God, love Him for who He is, and then get those resources out to people... Great post, Drew. I’ve been thinking about this lately after a few conversations with Tom myself. It seems to me that when trying to reach people with apologetics, you’ll encounter the intial objections that are giving them the biggest stumbling blocks to belief (held with varying degrees of emotional force), but when a solid and coherent challenge is given to these objections, they will oftentimes fall back on a smokescreen objection. The smokescreen might be something that doesn’t actually bother them that much, but if they are deadset on “supressing the truth in unrighteousness”, these are convenient fallback positions.

The interesting thing is that the person who has scientific objections will fall back on the more emotional, story/narrative-driven (the coherence part of the equation) objections as their smokescreen, while the more emotional/story/narrative type of person we think of when we think of postmoderns today will fall back on the scientific objections, because at the end of the day, we have not done a good enough job answering those scientific objections with the wealth of answers that we possess! When we present this faith that coheres, corresponds and correlates in all of its richness, and authenticate it by our living example, that is a powerful witness. Now if we would just meet God, love Him for who He is, and then get those resources out to people…

]]> By: bjnotbk http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-64311 bjnotbk Wed, 16 May 2007 14:22:29 +0000 http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-64311 sorry for the spelling....I just finished my first cup of coffee sorry for the spelling….I just finished my first cup of coffee

]]> By: bjnotbk http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-64308 bjnotbk Wed, 16 May 2007 14:21:03 +0000 http://www.goodmanson.com/2007-05/15/creating-a-church-to-change-culture/#comment-64308 Great post! I often laugh when I hear that we need to make the church or the Bible "relevant" to today's world. I understand what lies beneath this thought process in that we need to be all things to all people in communicating the gospel message and that we shouldn't adhere to past traditions or be confined to one way of doing things. The humor comes from trying to make God's word relevant when in fact His WORD (Jesus) is the only thing that is relevant. Great post!

I often laugh when I hear that we need to make the church or the Bible “relevant” to today’s world. I understand what lies beneath this thought process in that we need to be all things to all people in communicating the gospel message and that we shouldn’t adhere to past traditions or be confined to one way of doing things. The humor comes from trying to make God’s word relevant when in fact His WORD (Jesus) is the only thing that is relevant.

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