Feature
Moving A Church Toward Gospel-Centeredness
by Jeff Louie
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- We have sent four teams to Katrina-stricken New Orleans to help rebuild that area. We are scheduled to send three more teams by the end of this year;
- We have monthly involvement with “Habitat for Humanity” in San Francisco. When we first got involved, I talked with an Americore worker who remarked, “Churches usually send either young people who goof around or senior citizens who can’t do the heavy work. Your church sends adults who can do the labor”;
- We made up about 20% of the attendees at the International Justice Mission banquet in San Francisco last year. This was a $100 per person fund raising event. Our congregation sponsored over 100 people;
- We allow neighborhood groups to use our facility for free. Groups that regularly meet at our facilities include: “Sunset Artist’s Group” and “Westside Neighbors for the Ending of Homelessness.” Other neighborhood groups that have used our facilities are “Neighborhood Watch,” and “Neighborhood Emergency Response Training”;
- On designated Mondays we have an ongoing homeless ministry, where we distribute basic need items and talk with homeless people;
- We have members who regularly volunteer to tutor “at risk” San Francisco elementary school children. Christians often speak of problems with public education and the need for a school voucher program. I am not opposed to vouchers, but Christians need to do more than merely talk about what’s wrong with public education. We need to do something to help public school children;
- We have a regular involvement with the city’s “SF-Connect” service for the homeless. The city sponsors a bi-monthly event where over a thousand of the city’s homeless come to a designated site to get help. City services are present and volunteers are there to assist;
- We mobilized to become the only collection station for Samaritans Purse’s “Operation Christmas Child.” “Operation Christmas Child” gathers shoeboxes filled with items for children in needy countries. Our church volunteered to be the collection center for our city. We had dozens of volunteers who manned our church from 9 to 5 for an entire week.
I tell the congregation that they are not to do everything, but that everyone needs to do something to demonstrate God’s grace to people around us. I also stress that our works of community grace would mean little if we did not proclaim the truth boldly. We need to show grace to this world, but ultimately the world doesn’t need us, it needs Christ.
Dealing With Negatively Charged Moral Issues
How does the church respond to issues such as abortion and homosexuality? These issues are negatively charged, and have political and restrictive overtones. In expressing kindness and graciousness to our surrounding community, can we also express our views on these issues?
These are approaches that Christians have taken:
- No negative expressions at all, because abortion and homosexuality are not immoral.
- No negative expressions from the pulpit, or negative official statements made in public. Only socially acknowledged sins can be talked about on Sundays, such as greed, unfaithfulness, abuse, and prejudice. The sensitive issues can only be talked about in clear “Christian-only” settings like small groups or leadership meetings.
- Negative expressions have to be made on every level, and the society needs to be rebuked.
- Negative expressions need to be made at the appropriate time on any level, balancing rebuke and grace, and we need to talk about the other sins, too.
- Negative expressions need to be made at the appropriate time on any level, balancing rebuke and grace, and we need to talk about the other sins, too. But we also have to champion gracious activity to our community. Only in this way do we represent the true teaching of Christ.
If you have been following my paper, it is this final approach I advocate at Sunset Church.
Theory Put Into Practice: Same Sex Marriage
A few years ago, Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized the city to issue marriage licenses for same gender unions. His decision caused quite a political stir across the nation, but it also caused a spiritual stir in San Francisco. As a result of his action, I joined a group of about a half dozen pastors to respond to his declaration. We were to plan a rally and schedule a meeting with the Mayor about our concerns.
The involvement in this steering committee was difficult for me. Half of the committee had fundamentalist tendencies. Some wanted a “war-like” rally with a choir singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” A very hateful worded petition had been passed around the Bay Area with over 400 pastors signing it. Though I felt that Mayor Newsom’s landmark decision needed to be addressed publicly, I was very uncomfortable with the combative tone.
The situation was made more difficult when I began calling other pastors for their support. Many young pastors disagreed with the Mayor’s decision, but they also refused to say anything about it publicly. Fundamentalists were on one side and “redemptive-only” evangelicals on the other. This episode started my journey to find an approach to controversial societal issues that would be both uncompromising and gracious. First, I made a decision to refuse to sign the hatefully worded petition being passed around. I then asked my church’s elders to read the petition. They all agreed that the statement was too harsh. We wrote our own response.
Next, I fought to remove any “fundamentalistic” tone from the scheduled rally. To help moderate the tone, it was agreed that no platform speakers would be from the fundamentalist camp. “Onward Christian Soldiers” was not to be sung on that day. I led the opening prayer by asking God to enable us (7,000) to humble ourselves and understand His forgiving grace so that we would not manifest a spiritually prideful, or hateful attitude. Finally, I was one of the four pastors selected to speak directly to Mayor Newsom when we met with him. There were about 200 other ministers in the room or outside. I spoke clearly and graciously. Issues of moral controversy will put Christian leaders to the test. If one speaks the truth, is it spoken graciously? If one is gracious, has the truth been hidden? A gospel-centered approached founded on the clear teaching and life of Christ can help us here.
Theory Put Into Practice: Abortion
Abortion seems like yesterday’s issue. It is also too right-winged, too “moral majority,” and too Republican. The popular issues today are global-warming, homelessness, Darfur, the War in Iraq, slavery, and social justice.
My church usually has two occasions of prayer in our worship service. Our first time of prayer involves intercession. The second time, after the sermon, is always personally reflective. I had been planning to have our church pray along with International Justice Mission workers who were meeting on the weekend of April 21-22, 2007 in Washington D.C. It would also be the perfect time for the prayers to include other areas of injustice and suffering.
In the extended twenty-minute worship prayer that Sunday, we started with intercession for children trapped in prostitution, and the raising up of local believers in those nations to change the culture of abuse. We then prayed for the genocide in Darfur, that the international gridlock would be broken. Next, we interceded for the families of those killed at Virginia Tech. We printed out the pictures and names of each victim along with a brief description. I ended the prayer time with the final item: abortion. I told the congregation of the 46 million lives worldwide that were terminated by abortion in 2006. I told the church that we needed to be concerned for all sufferings in this world; that abortion is a grave injustice because the developing life cannot defend itself. We are not to be a people who just support the “pop issues of the moment.” We need to pray for the other great evils that plague this world.
The Gospel And Government
Christianity provides principles that allow the believer to successfully live out his faith regardless of the political climate. Whether there is governmental persecution or a Christian state religion, believers can be spiritually vibrant.
Sometimes Christians have no ability to change the political situation of their nation. If a state religion is not Christian-based, then a peaceful coexistence is the best scenario for the believer.
But sometimes Christians have dominance in a country. This dominance might be the result of a numerical majority or based upon a national heritage that resulted in the naming of Christianity as the state religion. Are there any principles for the Christian’s involvement in politics? From Scripture, we can derive the following:
