Week Five – Day One – The Social Gospel
“How wonderful it is that no one need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” –Ann Frank
There are many ways to communicate truth. St. Francis of Assisi is often quoted as having said, “Preach the gospel always and if necessary, use words.” Words can be powerful and communicate a lot but they can also be deceptive and misleading. Words can be twisted, misunderstood and fabricated. Has anyone ever said something to you that you did not understand? Has anyone ever lied to you? Has anyone ever told you something and only later you found out they didn’t know what they were talking about?
Throughout the many years since the Church began the gospel has been communicated through the written word, spoken word, dramatic expression, art and the demonstration of truth through serving. Which of these is most likely to successfully communicate the gospel? There is a balance between speaking and demonstrating the gospel. James sums it up by reminding us that faith without works is dead, just as talk without action is empty. The spoken gospel clarifies while the demonstrated gospel has the power to verify the message.
Like a pendulum on a grandfather clock, the Church has often swung back and forth between spoken truth and demonstrated truth. The term, “Social Gospel,” sprung out of the desire for the Church to demonstrate Christian truth and Kingdom values in the early 1900’s.
“The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as excessive wealth, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to operationalize the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:10): "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They typically were post-millennialist; that is, they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. Social Gospel leaders were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the Progressive Movement and most were theologically liberal, although they were typically conservative when it came to their views on social issues.”
- Wikipedia
Because the term, “Social Gospel,” has roots in liberal theology and the post-millennial doctrine that expects the Church to right all wrongs as a way to usher Christ’s Kingdom onto earth, it is not popular in evangelical circles today. It could be very misleading to declare that the evangelical Church today is returning to the Social Gospel. There are many similarities, to be sure, but at the heart of the movement that we are experiencing today is a strong view of biblical truth that demands Christ followers obey Christ’s teachings and value Kingdom values. There is no longer an association with the Kingdom theology that declares the Church can and will establish the Kingdom before the King returns.
It may be better to call it the “Service Gospel” than the “Social Gospel” in today’s vernacular. It’s not new to Christianity, but it is a new expression of truth that is best spoken in both word and deed.
Questions:
1. What does the Social Gospel evoke for you?
2. How is the post-millennial doctrine different from pre-millennial?
3. Does the Service Gospel communicate the balance we long for?
Week Five – Day Two – Movement Mentality
“The willingness to share does not make one charitable; it makes one free.” – Robert Brault
Throughout life we have conversations that burn into our minds like a hot brand on cowhide. When I was a freshman in college I had knew I needed to find some other young people who were passionate about pursuing their faith. Knowing how much peers influence our lives and I was thrilled to discover Campus Crusade for Christ in the school quad. They had a booth right next to the fraternities and sororities during rush week and when I approached them to inquire about how to get involved I found them to be lively and fun, kindhearted and well-spoken. It was an easy decision to sign-up for a follow-up meeting.
One week later, I found myself on a sundrenched mound of grass only a few feet from where I had signed-up to meet with Todd Langerfeld, the Campus Director. He was tall, handsome man who carried an athletic build and a great smile. As we talked I was excited to tell him about my upbringing as a pastor’s son, the years of ministry I’d experienced, the miracles I’d seen and the passion I had for fellowship with other Christian young people. I was sure he would be happy to have me on board. After all, I brought nearly two decades of Christian experience to the conversation that day.
After sharing my story, it was quite a shock for me when Todd told me that he didn’t think I would be a good fit for their ministry. He explained that he had worked with a lot of Christian young people over the years who were raised in the Church but they did not fit very well into Campus Crusade. He suggested I might be happier joining Inter Varsity. He assured me they had good Bible studies and great fellowship opportunities. He went on to explain that Campus Crusade was not a group, they were a movement. Groups gather together for a common purpose and that is not wrong, but groups come and go. Crusade was not interested in creating a new group. They were passionate about continuing a movement. They defined it this way, “win, build, send.” Although they had group meetings each one was designed to win new people to Christ, build them in their faith and send them to win more people to Christ who could then be built up and sent out. This process never ends. It’s constantly moving forward. Todd explained to me that kids who grew up in the Church usually don’t understand the movement mentality. They think the Church is a place to go but often overlook the fact that it is a place that goes.
When we designed our church plant we described our mission statement in much the same way that Campus Crusade did for me all those years ago. We ask each person at our church to go into the community, show them God is alive and grow them into disciples. The short version is, “Go, Show, Grow.” Our church is designed to be a movement, not a group.
Question:
1. Why might a movement mentality be better than a group mentality?
2. How does the Go, Show, Grow mission statement describe a movement mentality?
3. What happens to a church that doesn’t go?
Week 5 – Day Three – A New Day
“The difference between a helping hand and an outstretched palm is a twist of the wrist.” – Laurence Leamer
What would you do if you had a good idea? Would you share the idea with others? Would you try to make your idea become a reality? If you needed others to join you, would could you find them and pass the vision on so they could help? The Church in America is at the dawning of a new day. From east coast to west Evangelical churches are turning towards a Service Gospel by the thousands. There is little to guide these mini-movements other than the dreams of their leaders and the words of Scripture that was written 2,000 years ago.
What should the Church look like today? Is there a clear path to balancing the need to speak truth with living the truth? Some churches tend to focus more on the Sunday Service with great music, engaging preaching and regular altar calls. Professional leaders share the gospel from the pulpit and invite the congregation to respond. A few churches still go out on the streets and pass out gospel tracts or verbally share the gospel message. Many churches are now finding ways to engage their community in service, the majority of church-going people do not ever lead anyone to Christ.
While one church defines its mission as evangelism and evaluates success by the number of conversions and baptisms, another church defines its mission as discipleship and evaluates its success by life change. Other churches are big on teaching doctrine and yet others are big on worship and the sign gifts. Almost every evangelical church has pieces of each of these but it is rare to find a balance between them all. It’s difficult to even agree in theory what balance is. So, how do you find balance? If you do find it, is it because the pastor/leader is a better guide or because the congregants are more faithful?
In addition to the difficulty of balancing the different parts of what makes for the balanced Christian life, it is often made more difficult by the addition of a family and a job that demand the same resources as the mission of the church. There is no easy way to find balance. Much like a logger balancing on a moving log as it floats down a river, the Christian life requires constant vigilance and adjustment.
Forming the right idea is very crucial. Finding a way to make the idea a reality in mass is much more difficult.
Questions:
1. How can individuals find balance in their Christian life and service?
2. Do you know of any models that make for a good pattern of balance for the entire church?
3. How does your church define the balance?
4. If the majority of Christians ever got balanced how might it change the impact of the Church?
Week Five – Day Four – Everybody Loves to Be Loved
“In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy.”
– Karl Reiland
Every day you encounter a number of people when you leave your house. At work, on the road, in the grocery store and countless other places you have face-to-face contact with others. How does your face effect theirs? Are you kind? Do you bring love and safety and joy into the world? It will come as no surprise to you that many of the people you see could use some more love and encouragement.
There is a shortage of love in the world. Imagine that people are sponges. The come into the world much like the way they come out of the plastic wrapper when you buy them in the store; moist but not wet. Now, imagine that the water in the sponge represents love. Sponges are made to soak up water much like humans are made to soak up love. Sponges can become fully saturated to the extent they cannot absorb any more water but they can also become dried out after the water evaporates. You can be full of love or feel dried out and unloved. The problem is that when you are dry you have nothing to give others. When you are saturated, you can share love with others and still not become dry yourself.
If you are from a family where you were showered with love during your childhood, you likely found success in creating healthy friendships and your own family unit that generously shares love from one person to the next. It is likely though, that you come from a family where love was not showered as often and you have become used to being dry and not having much to share with others. Do you have an overflow of love to share with others? Are you getting by without getting dry, but still lack the ability to give much away? Maybe you are longing for love and find yourself in a dry place. If you could just get one drop of love you’d soak it up in an instant.
If the world around you is short on love, it will be an unhappy world. It will also be an opportunity. What might happen if you freely love others around you and give love to them so that they are no longer dry? They may give you back a little love, but you may find that you are soon dry as the need is so great.
1 John 4:8
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
The source for love is God. John does not say that God has love, but he tells us that God is love. It’s part of His eternal nature and essence. Because this is true, He can give you love without end. You will find that as you give it away, He always has more.
John 4:13
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
One of the simplest ways to share love is with a smile and a kind face. It costs nothing and does wonders.
Question:
1. How have you felt drained by others?
2. What do you have to do to get showered by Jesus’ love?
3. Who smiles at you the most? How does it feel?
4. Do people who know you feel better just knowing you are there?
Week Five – Day Five – Waiting for the Call
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
It can be very frustrating when we try to find the right balance and do all the right things only to find out later that we missed the mark. Can we confidently say we know the will of God? Yes, I believe we can. It starts by knowing the written Word. The Bible gives us a mountain of truth to rest our decisions on. From it we can learn about the heart of God and the habits of faithful people. Yet, when we need a specific word from God for a situation like who to marry, where to live or what job to pursue the Bible will only give us the parameters. Specifics may still be elusive.
When you are unsure what the right move is, you will often find yourself frozen in uncertainty. Your mind might tell you to sit still and wait in the Lord. Although this might be wisdom for a time, it can lead to a wasted life of indecision. God’s plan for you is not to sit on the sideline as a rule. To be certain, there are seasons of sidelines and seasons of brokenness but they are only seasons. If you find you are always waiting for the call, you need to stop waiting and get to work. The God who created the Universe with a spoken word is able to speak to you when you need to hear Him. It may not be audible but the direction will be there when you need it.
John 16:13
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
Just as Jesus is the eternal Word of God, the Holy Spirit is the guide to truth. He is constantly leading and guiding, convicting and illuminating. How does the Church know what a balanced approach to life and ministry is in today’s world? Follow the lead of the Holy Spirit. It is the joy of the Spirit to lead the Church in to the right places with the right mindset. We will find that we have achieved the right calling, balance and direction in the same proportion that we are diligent in seeking the Spirit’s direction.
How often do you ask God for direction? Is your life in a place where you could hear from God or are your prayers hindered? The following six things are prayer killers:
Selfish Motives. James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Ignoring Scripture. Proverbs 28:9, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
Unforgiving Heart. Mark 11:25, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Family Discord. 1 Peter 3:7, “showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
Unconfessed Sin. Psalm 66:18, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
Doubt. 1 James 1:5-7, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.”
Questions:
1. Is there anything keeping you from hearing God?
2. Is God free to lead in your church? Home? Office?
Week Five – Day Six – Church Without Walls
“What we have done for ourselves dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
– Albert Pike
What is Church? Is it a place? We often say things like, “I’m going to church.” Is it a group, as in, “She goes to my church.” At our church we often say, “Church is not what we do on Sunday. Church is what we do all week long. Sunday is the day we gather to celebrate what God has been doing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.” The Bible describes the Church as a building whose foundation is Christ, a wall made up of fitly joined parts, a body whose head is Christ and the bride of Christ.
One of the pitfalls that many churches fall into is putting too much emphasis on their building. As much as a building can be part of a solid mission and vision, it can also be a stumbling block. Some churches even worship their building more than their Savior. It’s easy to see why. Often the most amazing and galvanizing feat a local church ever pulls-off on this earth is coming together and sacrificing to build a new building for worship. We all like to have a tangible expression of our work and nothing is more satisfying than standing back and saying, “We built that for the Lord.”
After we build our buildings, we work hard to fill them with people. If this goes well, we build bigger building and fill them. But what does it communicate to the unbeliever when we tell them, “Come join us?” Wouldn’t it be more like Jesus’ example to say to them, “I’ll come to you?” Is your church a come and see church or a go and show church?
The go and show model of church is designed to take the gospel to the unchurched world and deliver it to them in a language they can understand and respect. It means finding common ground for delivering eternal truth.
We need to get out of our four walls and show someone we care. There are many important ministries that happen inside the church building. We need to have a place that is designed for kids and worship and potlucks. But much of ministry happens at work and in the park or across the street.
The new paradigm God is giving the Church is one of Unity and Community. Churches are working together across denominational, ethnic and geographical boundaries in new and exciting ways. There is a common heart for unifying the body. At the same time, there is a newfound desire to get out of our four walls and into the community. Unity and Community have become the words to describe the movement. Good works leads to good will which leads to good news.
The walls to our churches should never be keeping people from God. We should be a church without those kinds of walls.
Questions:
1. When people come to your church for the first time, what usually draws them?
2. As a new person at your church, would it be difficult to get to know people?
3. How likely is it that an unchurched person would hear and see the truth without ever stepping into your church building?
4. How has your church tried to share the gospel in a language the unchurched understand?
Week Five – Day Seven – Redefining the Goal
“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
What is a missionary? Isn’t it someone who brings the gospel to the places in the world where people have not heard it? Have you ever thought about being a missionary? Where would you go if you were to go into a mission field? Would you choose a third world or a first world country? At one time Europe was completely saturated with the gospel and no missionaries were needed there anymore. They have now become a post-Christian culture, meaning that many Europeans have not heard the gospel at all and are not likely to.
When I first moved to Holland in 1999 our real-estate agent was showing us houses and as we drove around I mentioned the flood and Noah’s Ark in conversation. It amazed me that this woman, who’d grown up in a country with a rich Protestant Christian heritage, had never heard of the flood or the Ark. Her bible knowledge consisted of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden and even then, it was only that they had eaten an apple. She didn’t know why it was wrong to eat an apple, but she had worked out that they had done something wrong.
The United States of America may not be as post-Christian as Europe but we are headed in that direction. By taking Christmas and Easter out of the public schools and making churches unwelcome in the public sector we have made the gospel message less available to the next generation.
Romans 10:13-15
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Is it possible for you to be a missionary in your own City? For many years the western church has been sending missionaries to the east and to Africa mostly to the third-world countries. That trend has shifted. Today, many of our missionaries are coming out of the third- world countries. When you think about where you might go to be a missionary, you might want to consider that our own City needs missionaries. Shouldn’t every man, woman and child in our City hear the gospel in a language they understand, know where to find a healthy, life-giving church and have the means to get there?
If we don’t take the gospel to our City in word and deed, with sharing and caring, we can expect that we will become a post-Christian Nation soon ourselves. We are not there yet, but that is the direction we are headed. Will we do something about it while we still can? Will you?
Questions:
1. Do you think of yourself as missionary?
2. Who are the most difficult to reach in our City?
3. Who are you best equipped to bring the good news to?
4. What is the largest cost associated with missions? How might this be overcome if you were to be a missionary in your own City?
5. Do you have a plan to share the gospel with the people on your own street?
Small Group Discussion Guide: Week Four
Open your time with prayer. Ask God to lead and guide you and welcome Him into your presence. Pray for each other and care for one another.
LOOK
Acts 14:1, “At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.”
Acts 17:1-4
“When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.”
LEARN
How did Paul do church planting? He had a simple formula. Whenever he went into a new City he found a place where people already gathered and he went there to preach the gospel. God often allowed Paul to do miraculous signs to validate the message he preached. Most often, Paul went to the synagogue and began with the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles.
Paul’s method was to go and show, not to raise funds, build a building and then invite people to come and see what he was all about.
Questions:
1. Why did Paul go to the Jews first and then the Gentiles?
2. How did Paul find an opportunity to preach the gospel message to the Jews?
3. Can you think of a time in Scripture when Paul advocated a come and see approach to ministry?
4. What did it cost Paul to share the gospel?
5. Why do you think Paul traveled with a ministry partner?
SHARE
1. Where are the places in your City where people gather to discuss spiritual things, but where the gospel is not preached?
2. Do you think you are more effective at sharing the gospel if you are not alone?
3. God caused miracles to happen in Paul’s day so that his message would be validated. How might He validate the message today?
4. How might you go and show the gospel to your City?
5. How is the “Service Gospel” similar to Paul’s approach?
6. Was Paul’s ministry a movement or a group?
