Pilgrim Soldier

Well I’m still reading Velvet Elvis and finding it a very challenging read! I can certainly understand why some elements of the church are raising criticisms of the things Rob Bell says in it, but I feel competent enough to look beyond these things and get to the truth that is contained within. He even tells people not to simply swallow everything he says without thinking about it!

Anyway, one thing he has written is very interesting:

Mission is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there.

His premise is that we tend to say thing like we’re going to “take Jesus” to a new place as if we believe that God is not already present there. His response is that we should be trying to find a way of explaining Jesus to the people we come into contact with that connects with the place they are.

This is a wonderful way to explain things. Missionaries of old used to fall into the trap of assuming they new God better than it was possible for the “pagans” they were trying to reach could. Because of this they transplanted what they saw as Christian society to the place they were going.

Today we are more enlightened and the majority of the church would be horrified if missionaries going overseas tried to do the same thing. This is great! But why do we often try to do the same thing at home? Instead of trying to show how God to people in a way they will understand, all too frequently we plant churches in new areas that are a clone of the mother church.

In a very real way our ability to do this is reflected by how big our God is. If we have a God that is basically constrained by our experience of Him and we don’t expect Him to act outside of that understanding then we will forever react in the same ways. However, if we believe in the Ephesians 3:20 type of God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine, then our ability to help people find Him wherever we might be is incredibly enhanced.

It’s simply a case of opening our eyes and seeing God’s presence all around us.