In the week or weeks ahead I will be posting the following (so I hope you will stay tuned):

Book reviews of a couple of fairly recent reads: The Great Giveaway by Fitch, The Search for God and Guinness by Mansfield and finally Book, Bath, Table and Time by Edie.

I also will be doing a post on Youth Ministry and the place of baptism in our theological and practical approach.

Finally I will be doing a post in the near future on A Prepositional Gospel 2.0.

Here in the east many are bracing for some serious weather - if it is affecting you - be safe and enjoy the “break” as the weather limits your activities. If your team is in the Super Bowl - well enjoy. I am anticipating a great super bowl menu, a shoot out of a game, and a few choice adult beverages.

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” -John Ruskin

Peace!

I have been giving a good bit of thought to the topic of The Gospel; really just attempting to think about clear ways to share the “heart” of God’s story. I have always thought that the Gospel reduced to, “Jesus died for you” was far too diluted and narrow (The Gospel is more than a theory of Substitutionary Atonement). I also think making the Gospel message a couple of steps of actions (1. Accept that God loves you. 2. Acknowledge and Repent. 3. Pray this…, etc.) makes it a far too process oriented thing and too dismissive - “Well, I took care of that.” (The Gospel is more than a golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory - or Heaven, as the case may be).

So I have some presuppositions about what the Gospel is and is not.

The Gospel in my mind is not just a “way to get saved” or the message that merely gets us started in the Christian life. When I think about the Gospel - I am thinking of it in terms of the “heart” of what God is doing in our world. Why is God involved in the affairs of Planet Earth at all? I also am thinking about the Gospel in terms of its ramifications for our lives. I think the heart of God’s story (the Gospel) obligates those who enter into the story on a lifelong journey of both understanding and appropriating this narrative into our life and world. With that in mind, the following is one (of many ways) that I have been thinking about as the essence of the Gospel story (I must acknowledge that the message in our church service yesterday - really helped this bumble of thoughts click to allow me to share them in this fashion).

On to a prepositional gospel:

God is with us - we see this very clearly in both the Creation narrative and in the promise and coming of Emmanuel (God’s new creation). God is near to all of us - will we open our eyes and become attentive to the God who is with us?

God is for us - we see this in the Exodus event and in Jesus willingness to walk toward and endure the cross (To gain victory over sin, death, & the devil). God is not merely with - but he is on our side - will we avail ourselves to God’s power, direction and loving provision?

God is in us - we see this in the promise of the new covenant (a new law written on our hearts) and the resurrection and ascension that leads to the sending of the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. God is desiring to make His dwelling place in our lives - will we allow God to work into us His fruit that we might work it out into our communities - for the sake of others?

Any thoughts? What are the strengths of distilling out the Gospel in this way? What are the weaknesses?