Did you know that the great Hindu leader, Mohandas Gandhi at one time had considered becoming a Christian … that is, until he was turned off by the inconsistency in the lives of the believers he encountered. Rather than convert to faith in Christ, he retreated to his native religion and would later say, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Author Brennan Manning wrote, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

Misunderstanding our beliefs

One of the big reasons for this inconsistency is that too many of us misunderstand our faith. And if we’re uniformed about the basic foundational teachings of the Christian faith how can we live out the message of the gospel the way it was meant to be.

For many today the “gospel” has become a self-centered, me-first exercise in personal improvement. The central question has become, What can Christianity do for me? How does being a follower of Jesus benefit my life? This thinking is far from the first-century concept of the faith, which centered its message in kingdom-building, not coming up with “steps” to becoming a better person and achieving personal success.

Jesus has called us to be his ambassadors. Therefore we need to know what we’re representing and communicating. Maybe we need a clearer definition of basic New Testament terms like “salvation”, “righteousness,” “justification”, in order to effectively live out and communicate the Good News. Not understanding the most basic concepts of our faith renders us useless emissaries. Worse, we end up being parodies of Jesus, laughed at and not taken seriously by an already skeptical and disdainful world.

New sermon series

So in order to help us along here in the NBV, starting this coming Sunday we’re beginning a new sermon series called, “Theology For The Rest Of Us”. In this series we’ll take the big words and the deep ideas about God and puts them into language the rest of us can understand and appreciate. My hope is that this will help build a solid foundation to your faith, help you to be more consistent and attractive as a follower of Jesus, and help you communicate your faith to others when opportunities arise. I’m sure that whether you’re a new believer or an old timer you’ll find these talks helpful.

See you Sunday,

Mike T

My thoughts for this update were greatly helped along by a book review written by Vineyard pastor Jim Miller.