Origins Quotes - part two

I am going to start breaking down some of my notes from Origins into blog posts (finally). Some of it is my thoughts based on what was heard. Some is my rewording of what was said. Most I can no longer distinguish. I am certainly not trying to plagiarize or take credit for other peoples ideas, I simply have been absorbing too much from too many different places recently. It is a blur, a jumble, and then I added my own junk and interpretations on top of that.

A few days ago I listed many of the quotes I wrote down during the sessions at Origins. I had a request to talk more about one of the quotes in particular…

All of us want Pentecost, but we are afraid of Mars Hill.

For many years, the scriptural banner of the mega-church has been the Day of Pentecost. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:42 NIV).

"See," they’d say to themselves (and each other), "God likes big numbers. In fact, he is so concerned with them, he bothered to count how many were added to the Church. The very first church was a mega-church and so our goal should be to be a mega-church too."

And part of me bought it.

Now, to be fair, this is an unfair, one dimensional picture I am painting. And to be even more fair, I am not remotely against mega-churches in general. I think a lot of them have focused on numbers in place of faith, but I know a number of them are also deeply committed to serving the Lord the best they can and in doing so have attracted huge crowds.

So as I began my present journey away from the institutional nature of church and towards the true mission of Christ, one of the things I realized about reaching out to fringe people in a non institutional way was how slow this is going to be. And worse, I might not ever see the fruit of my labor.

And this is where Erwin’s message on Mars Hill hit me. This is precisely my problem, frustration, and fear. Pentecost was quick and easy while Mars Hill was hard, uncomfortable, and had minimal results.

Pentecost

One of those things I always knew, but never really thought about, was the fact the the people Peter preached to at Pentecost were all (or mostly all) Jews. They were familiar with the Jewish verbage, the Old Testament scriptures, and many of them had been there for the crucifixion. They were not new to God’s story, they just had some gaps in their faith. Peter filled in the gaps, convicted them of their sin, and they baptized 3000. In addition to having a relatively easy audience, the message was accompanied by the miraculous appearance of the Holy Spirit and the ability of the entire crowd to understand the Apostles in their own language.

I mean think about it. Most of us would love the opportunity to preach in front of thousands of non-believers, but ideally we would like to preach in front of people who understand our lingo, are already close to God and/or seeking God, but just need to make a decision. We would love to bring 3000 to faith because of our preaching.

Mars Hill

Mars Hill is another dynamic all together. You can read the whole story here, but let’s just focus on the results.

That ended Paul’s discussion with them, but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the council, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (Acts 17:33-34 NLT)

A handful become believers. The rest basically think he is crazy. It was a different culture, a city he was unfamiliar with, the people came from a different background, and the crowd was a group of philosophers who thought they already had all the answers.

Most of the Jews at Pentecost knew or knew of Jesus. They still needed to get the blanks filled in by Peter so they could believe, but they had heard Jesus teach. The people of Athens knew nothing. They were starting from square one. And their square one was not a monotheistic worldview that just needed to be introduced to Jesus. These people believed in many gods.

Mars Hill is, in fact, named after the god Mars. Athens is a city named after the goddess Athena. And to top it off, Mars Hill sits at the foot of the mountain that the Temple to Athena is built on. Paul is in the middle of a Pagan city in a culture steeped in Pagan worship.

Today

There are a lot of people in the West who are in essentially in the position of the Jews at Pentecost. They are a step away from faith. They are seeking. So they come to our church (or special event/rally/etc) and hear the gospel preached. And they come to faith.

But the percentage of people in this position is rapidly shrinking. And in other parts of the world, this group is miniscule and almost non-existent. We are faced with a group of people who are essentially in the position of the Athenians of Mars Hill. They are educated, spiritual people, but what little they know about the church and Jesus is probably more of a turn off than a foundation to begin our teachings with.

The whole idea of engaging culture on their terms in their local is frightening. What’s more, the growth is slow. And the frustration for me personally, is we may never know the results of our work.

Think about the crowd at Mars Hill for a minute. We know that a handful became believers, but how do we know what happened to the rest? Did they later turn to Christ? Did they continue their pagan lifestyle? Did they become evangelists themselves within their culture?

All of us want Pentecost, but we are afraid of Mars Hill.

If Pentecost was the banner of the modern mega-church, Mars Hill should be the banner of the missional church (not the name, necessarily, but the concept). We need to be in the midst of culture engaging people where they are at. And we need to be less concerned with reaching the 3000, and more concerned with 1 or 2.

This is, of course, not an excuse to ignore the masses around us who don’t know Christ, but rather a call to reach them too… but really, that is another post for another time.

Tags: Erwin McManus, Origins, Pentecost, Mars Hill, Emerging Church, Missional

…again, at this point, my brain has absorbed this as one of my ideas/values/principles. The idea came from Erwin and the reality and truth came from scripture. So the credit goes to God and Erwin gets my thanks for introducing me to this thinking. Thanks man.