My thoughts on class today (Sept 28 2009)

I think the first thing that struck me today was the idea that “Most ideas blocking the gospel from getting to people are social, not theological”. It’s interesting to me because coming from a culture that is so social, it’s hard to imagine no one “getting” our social structure. But having been outside the Western world, I know that culture shock upon re-entry to the US is almost as bad, if not worse than the regular kind. And to hear some of the stats thrown out in class about some churches in the UK are able to predict the death of their church and denomination because of a huge lack of growth is crazy! I think ultimately, the idea that we are going to use this class to look at churches in all sorts of cultural forms, not to copy, but to observe how they reached their culture is why I am here…at Fuller. I want to know how to bring the gospel to people in a way that they don’t need to change their culture in order to learn about Jesus, but that we would bring Jesus to them, and enable them to radically change their own cultures.