Its cool when the Lord speaks to something I’ve been reflecting on.
After writing “Jesus-shaped preaching”, I read this paragraph from Alan Hirsch’s “The Forgotten Ways”:
I wish to briefly restate here what seems to be an obvious fact, but one that is often overlooked. For authentic missional Christianity, Jesus the Messiah plays an absolutely central role. Our identity as a movement, as well as our destiny as a people, is inextricably linked to Jesus – the Second Person of the Trinity. In fact, our connection to God is only through the Mediator – Jesus is “the Way”; no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). This is what makes us distinctly Christ-ian.
At its very heart, Christianity is therefore a messianic movement, one that seeks to consistently embody the life, spirituality, and mission of its Founder. We have made it so many other things, but this is its utter simplicity. Discipleship, becoming like Jesus our Lord and Founder, lies at the epicenter of the church’s task. It means that Christology must define all that we do and say. It also means that in order to recover the ethos of authentic Christianity, we need to refocus our attention back to the Root of it all, to recalibrate ourselves and our organizations around the person and work of Jesus the Lord. It will mean taking the Gospels seriously as the primary texts that define us. It will mean acting like Jesus in relation to people outside of the faith; as God’s Squad, a significant missional movement to outlaw bikers around the world puts it, “Jesus Christ – friend of the outcasts”. (p.94, emphasis his)
Note the line, “it will mean taking the Gospels seriously as the primary texts that define us”!
That’s what I’m thinking too.