Hard Words...Challenging Questions.

Len at NextReformation.com stirs the pot a little with some hard words and challenging questions. He writes...

"If there is any consensus in the emergent church, it is that the gospel preached in North America is not the Gospel. Closely related, many of us believe that what we call 'church' is not the church. The church exists as a quality of relationship and the transcendent intersection of Spirit and flesh in faithful communities that serve to make Christ known. It is dynamic and powerful and bears only a passing relationship to the institutions built by humankind.

A discussion on RESONATE got me thinking about the relationship of the Gospel and its expression in faithful communities. The relationship is much like that of root and fruit.

At the risk of offense, here are some thoughts. If what we see around us is congregations rather than communities.. if we see organizations which mostly limit the earthly expression of the movement Jesus died to birth... if, in other words, we see many gatherings not much 'church'.. then we are witnessing the natural outcome of a gospel that is not the Gospel.

My thesis is this: the true Gospel produces what God intended - authentic and faithful communities of Jesus apprentices who are impacting their world. If what we see around us is not that.. then it is an expression of a gospel that is not the Gospel. The fruit is wrong.. therefore the root is wrong.

Within emergent circles there is consensus on few things.. but one of those few things is that we have mostly lost the real Gospel.. we have exchanged it for slick packaged, self-oriented, pottage.. we have a gospel of sin management, fire insurance, that is informational but does not transform.. it has little reference to the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus preached. And therefore it shouldn't surprise us if the product is McChurch rather than ekklesia."

What do you think?