Uncool People Need Jesus Too

[Dr. Bob Gonzales]

I'd like to commend to you two recent blog entries by one of our seminary students, Bill Streger, Pastor of Kaleo Church in Houston, which is part of the Acts 29 Network, an association of pastors and churches focused on reaching the unchurched and planting churches.

In the first entry, entitled, "Uncool People Need Jesus Too," Bill warns pastors within his own ecclesiastical circles against allowing a good thing (i.e., a burden and effort to reach the younger "hip" generation) to develop into an imbalance (i.e., a failure to be burdened for and reach people who may not be young and "hip"). In the second entry, entitled, "What I Actually Meant," Bill provides some qualifying remarks to clarify the intent of his original post.

I believe that we can profit from Bill's caution against the tendency to be trendy and to mimic other ministries in ways that are unwarranted or imbalanced. Perhaps more importantly, we can profit from Bill's willingness to be self-critical. There's always a danger of becoming so enamored with our strengths that we become blind to our weaknesses.

"Uncool People Need Jesus Too": An Acts 29 Network Pastor Offers a Caution to His Colleagues and Provides an Example of a Healthy and Humble Self-Critical Posture

 

[Mrs. Bailey]

Thank you!

I haven't yet earned my stripes on PB to be able to thank you, but I do here. I appreciate the first paragraph summary of WCF and analysis of it in your post, Dr. Bob.

Thanks , I'll be thinking about this....

 

[Kentaro]

Thank you for your post. I will try to check it out. Every time I hear "we need to focus on reaching the (insert people group here)." I always think about the others as well. What about those not in the inner city? What about those who are not on the fringe. What about those who aren't considered outcasts. No one should be excluded. I'm afraid every time we try to "focus" in the church, we run the risk of excluding someone or something else that God wants us to be faithful in as revealed in His Word.

 

[ColdSilverMoon]

I thought both posts were very good and true on several different levels. Many thought Streger was criticizing Driscoll and Keller in his first post, but actually I think both men would agree with him: he was arguing against the idolization of these men - not their ministries - as he makes clear in the second post. I think many young church planters want to be the next Tim Keller or Mark Driscoll rather than following the particular call God has given them. That's a real danger, and as Dr. Keller would say, it illustrates the problem of transforming a "good thing" into an "ultimate thing."