Saturday, February 22, 2014

A Change in Emphasis

For the past few years I've spent quite a bit of time focusing on church forms. In particular, I wrote a lot about forms of gatherings, forms of leadership, and forms of church in general. It's time for a change.

Moving forward I'll still be talking a great deal about the church. Most of my posts will look at outcomes and goals as opposed to forms. Primary topics will include edification, discipleship, unity, and missions.

Along with church-related issues, I'll continue writing about the family, politics, education, and culture in general. These topics will be less frequent than church issues, and usually arise when something occurs that is noteworthy nationally. Not surprisingly, many of these topics overlap quite bit.

I recently posted the following on Facebook, "The older I get the more important the unity of the body of Christ is becoming to me. Our differences seem less important while our togetherness seems increasingly critical. Let us unite around Jesus Christ and his gospel." I was happy to see several of my friends "Like" this statement. I sense increasing numbers of Christians desiring unity within the body of Christ as a whole. This excites me. I'll be writing more and more on the topic of unity in the days ahead. My hope is that this blog will be more of a uniter than a divider.

To sum up, it's simply time for a change (but not "change we can believe in.")

4 comments:

Aussie John said...

Eric,

I guess you are meaning unity "in Christ",in diversity.

I'm always amazed at how we can make minor issues, a matter of major importance.

Eric said...

John,

Unity within diversity to be sure. My desire is to cherish the togetherness that we can all have as followers of Christ even in the midst of differences over significant but less important issues.

Steve Scott said...

Eric,

It is quite possible for an "institutional" church to have rich fellowship and most of the one-anothers we believe in, and even participatory stuff (although not really in the Sunday meeting). I've experienced those several times. I would take a church like that over a form-only organic.

Eric said...

Steve,

I agree. While institutional churches may have some forms to overcome, any local body has issues to deal with. My interests are morphing now to deal mainly with outcomes, some of which could happen in any setting.