Help me out here. I’m doing a bit of market research.
I’ve been working on a manuscript for a little book that could serve as a resource for churches that want to give newcomers/seekers something that explains a “bigger” gospel than has usually been presented in such literature. By “bigger” I mean an explanation of the gospel that doesn’t reduce salvation to “having your sins forgiven so that you can go to heaven when you die.” A gospel that includes forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation, but also incorporates missional living and spiritual formation into the call to follow Jesus.
At the same time, as David Fitch has written about here, I don’t want to make the gospel so big that it becomes too complicated to explain or respond to. So I’ve tried to put something together that helps people discern what “next steps” they need to take in order to receive the good news and start following Jesus. The working title is “Onramps and Intersections: Becoming a Part of God’s Story.”
Based upon several conversations I’ve had with church leaders, there seems to be a need for such a resource, especially for churches with a restoration heritage (Churches of Christ/Christian Churches). Existing resources from our heritage are either outdated, too sectarian, too negative, or too stuffy. It’s also hard for churches in our heritage to use a resource from the larger evangelical community because it will usually include an invitation to pray the sinner’s prayer, rather than an invitation to be baptized. That said, I’d hope that it would be useful to others outside the restoration heritage as well.
Here are the chapter titles and themes:
1. Let Me Tell you a Story–a narrative approach to the gospel.
2. The Story from Above–The gospel from God’s perspective
3. The Story from Below–The gospel from our perspective
4. Jesus: The Center of the Story–How the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the key to the story.
5. Conversion: Becoming a Part of God’s story–how conversion is both an event and a process
6. Baptism: The Portal Into the Story–A healthy, holistic exploration of baptism
7. Communion: Remembering the Story
8. Spiritual Formation: Fitting Into the Story–an explanation of how Christlikeness is the goal and how spiritual formation is the process through which God forms us.
9. Spiritual Habits: Practicing the Story–Describing how practicing spiritual disciplines puts us in the position to be transformed.
10. Worship: Celebrating the Story–a practical theology of worship for the church gathered and scattered.
11. Our Mission: Performing the Story–seeing everyday life as our primary mission field.
12. Partnership: Participating in the Story with Others–theology of the church, spiritual gifts, and the need to be a part of a spiritual community.
Based on what I’ve described so far, do you think such a resource (think book/booklet or maybe dvd) that is professionally edited and artfully produced, and yet amazingly affordable, would be something you could/would use in your ministry?
If so let me know. If not, let me know why not.
I’d love to hear from my non-restoration heritage readers as well.
If there is any interest, I’ll post a few sample chapters for feedback.
Thanks for your help.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
I would definately use this kind of material. My senior minister and I are creating this conversation for our church right now, and it is a difficult task.
I would say that a book would be most helpful for leaders, but a DVD series would be most lay person friendly.
Wade, I think this is a much needed and wonderful idea. The chapters look spot on to me. Being an avid reader, I’m partial to a book/booklet although some sort of DVD, web presentation, etc. would be useful as well.
I would definetly read/watch this and I think it would help me with my own understanding of these things so that I could share this with others. I would prefer a book myself but can see why a DVD may be more accessible to Bible classes and non-readers. Either way, I would want it.
I like it, Wade. I would most definitely use a resource like that. Here are two thoughts I had: 1) Personally, I’m not sold on the DVD/Web presentation idea. For starters, doing something like that is an extremely expensive undertaking (especially if you want it done well) that will jack up the cost for those wanting to purchase it. Secondly, I’ve never seen one of those things that didn’t turn out to be a little gimmicky. At some point the medium becomes the message. 2) I’m wondering if the last chapter couldn’t be integrated in the book a little bit earlier. This is mostly a reaction to the hyper-individualism that permeates christian culture. The message is typically “Jesus saved ME and he is my ‘personal’ savior. Participating in the life of a faith community is good and nice, but not the most important thing.” How do you incorporate that salvation (in this “bigger sense) is received both in and through community?
I think a DVD for a small group of friends could help break the ice, as long as it was short, concise and not terribly cheesy.
I’m not a big fan of booklets or literature to hand people.
Making something like this as natural as possible to incorporate into our daily relationships would definitely be worth your efforts.
I prefer books to DVDs – it’s really hard to make a video presentation that would be good enough to have even no bad impact on the message, much less improve it. Could this information be posted on the Web in a simple format, and the booklet be a Table of Contents plus a 1-2 page overview with the URL? That might be easier than a full book with chapters.
If you do write it up as a book, please let me know how I can order a copy.
Alright!
I can help finance ur project. I believe in u and the idea. Let me know if and how I can help
Yes, Wade, it sounds great if the format is short and concise enough and the title isn’t anything like “The Glory and Agony of the Cross”.
Wade – Love the idea and would love to have it as a resource for newcomers. I look forward to reading those sample chapters.
You going to Catalyst again this year?
I think this is a great and useful idea. When telling someone about where I attend church, it is usually, “I attend the church of christ, but…” and I proceed to tell them more of my faith gospel than church stuff. I think your book would address this with believers as well in knowing what to share. The church has had a tendency to get a person saved and then leave them to figure out the rest for themselves. This could be a resource for the new convert as well. Lynn
Great idea and much needed in our Restoration fellowship.
When we speak about living out a story, a helpful illustration that I have used was being a child and putting on my black cowboy hat, my toy pistol and holster, and my black eye-mask to play the Lone Ranger with my brother. We would watch the TV show, so we knew how the story went and how it turned out (Lone Ranger always wins) and then we would go and live out that story in our back yard. The bad guys would loose and the good guys (myself and my brother playing Tonto) would win.
The gospel is just like this. We have heard the story of God’s creative and redemptive gospel. We know how it turns out. Now, will we go and live out the story?
This will be a great and much needed book!
Grace and peace,
Rex
Wade,
We’ve been struggling for a book like this at RCC (north of Detroit) . . . we just started using “Living God’s Love” by Holloway et al.
Keep up the great work. I’d love to read the sample chapters.
JG
Wade,
I’m assuming you’ve seen Wright’s Simply Christian.
Along the publishing lines, I find this idea to be fascinating. I plan to participate. Could your potential book be done this way?
http://Consafo.com/
Peace.
Resources like this are absolutely needed.
I have a question though – what’s the least a person needs to know to become a Christian? I noticed you’re five studies in before you get to conversion, and six studies in before you get to baptism.
I read Acts and see people giving their lives to God pretty quickly. Do you think some of the more in depth stuff from the first few studies could be gotten into later?
I have been wating for you to write a book for the past 5 years, so its about time. I would like to contradict the DVD recomendations by saying that unless they are amazing.. they just end up on the 50% off rack in the back of mardel.. it would have to be a killer video. but sounds great!
Wade,
I think a book like the one you’re thinking of is great to hand to someone, but the sad truth is that many might subsitute the handing off of this book for actual relationship and jounrey with people who don’t know the Lord.
I think that there should be a little text box on the inside cover of it that says, “If the person who gave this to you isn’t sitting with you right now, wait until they are before you read any further.”
I will buy it if you write it.
I liked Jud White CD using kungfu, so try that mode even
warren
I think it’s a terrific idea.
(I’d have said so earlier, but I just figured out why I was reticent to comment when I read this post a couple of days back, though.
Whenever I express appreciation or enthusiasm for a new idea, I always wind up with some fairly large percentage of responsibility for making sure it happens.)
I like it. The more options we can bring to people…the better the odds of them acting upon it.
This seems to be a unique and new way of portraying the good news.
247christian.net