Adventures in Missing the Point How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel

Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel Copyright © 2003 by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo Youth Specialties products, 300 S. Pierce St., El Cajon, CA 92020, are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McLaren, Brian D., 1956- Adventures in missing the point : how the culture-controlled church neutered the Gospel / by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo. p. cm. ISBN-10: 0-310-25384-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25384-6 1. Theology, Doctrinal--Popular works. I. Campolo, Anthony. II. title. BT77 .M388 2003 270.8'3--dc21 2002156593 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version (North American Edition). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Edited by Tim McLaughlin Design by Burnkit Printed in the United States of America 05 06 07 / DCI / 10 9 8 7 6 MISSING THE POINT about MISSING THE POINT Sometimes the first thing we forget is what we're really trying to do. At least that's what my friend Jim Henderson says, and he has a story to prove it: I'm in Home Depot. A series of consumer canyons tower menacingly overhead. All I need is a thingamajig. Where is it and who cares? My eyes quickly scan the horizon of stuff looking for a little just-in-time customer service. I want to scream: Take your eyes off those boxes! Get down off that stupid ladder! Quit visiting with your coworkers! Don't pick up that phone! Pay attention to me! But it's pointless, and I finally get it: I'm an interruption. An irritation. They'd prefer I wasn't in their building. They've forgotten why they went into business. It wasn't to count boxes. Or visit each other. Or ignore the customer. They went into business to pay attention to the customer. Employees like these have missed the point. Which is how a lot of us feel about the way we're living out Christian faith in the early 21st century. Somehow, we're missing the point. We pastors and preachers listen to our own sermons, see the frantic pace of programs and meetings we've created, and shivers run up our spines: are we somehow missing the point? Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of religious products and programs? Are we creating a self-isolating, self- serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead of a world-penetrating (like salt and light), world-serving (focused on "the least and the lost," those Jesus came to seek and save), world-transforming (like yeast in bread), Godcentered (sharing God's love for the whole world) counterculture? If so, even if we proudly carry the name evangelical (which means "having to do with the gospel"), we're not behaving as friends to the gospel, but rather as its betrayers. However unintentionally, we can neuter the very gospel we seek to live and proclaim. This book is our attempt, flawed and faltering to be sure, to get us thinking about the frightening possibility of unintentional betrayal of the gospel by those entrusted with it. And more, this book isn't about pointing fingers at "them" for their mistakes. It's about us. Protestants and Catholics, liberals and conservatives, hand-clappers and nonclappers, Pentecostals and Presbyterians (and Pentecostal Presbyterians)-all of us. So we'd like to invite aMcLaren, Brian D. is the author of 'Adventures in Missing the Point How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel' with ISBN 9780310253846 and ISBN 0310253845.