At the end of Zero Movement, McManus leaves a few things that are “Fuel for Thought”, number 3 is: “ How well does our approach toward worship and evangelism reflect the needs and culture of our unchurched community?”. But this entire chapter is all about how the Church has declined because we are so concern as to how a Church will meet our needs. I don’t think that focusing on the unchurched community is the solution to the problem being presented. There is no call to repentance, no turning from sin, no focusing on God. By this account the churches main sin is against the community around it and not against God. We can switch our focus for self to someone else, but we’re still not focusing on God. Again, I do agree with his assessment of the Church, and I do agree with how he thinks a church should function in the world around us, but the answer is to be found on our knees first, and on the streets second.
Views on Erwin McManus – An Unstoppable Force 2
January 4, 2008 by laurelesser
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I just finished reading this book. As I understand it, the book really isn’t about the purpose of individual Christians, but more so about the purpose of the “church”. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect him to say as much about repentance. The focus of the book is a call for the church to return to her apostolic roots where every member was in fact an evangelist. The evangelistic method underlying the entire book could be termed relational evangelism. Therefore, his concern about understanding and relating to the community is vital to earning the privilege to be heard by the unchurched.
I am quite sure that McManus shares your concern for prayer and repentance. He just feels that the gospel travels best across relational bridges from one person to another. From my personal experience, I tend to agree.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been reading this book (I do plan on finishing it soon) and really appriciate your comments. I am at such a place of confusion when it comes to this book and a lot of others that I have been reading. I agree with much of what he says about the church now and the way it should look, but I continue to run into the same central problem. The blame for the church’s problems fall on mans process or the way that we do church and the solution is centralized on our actions, not our heart towards God. (I’m not sure if I said that right). It puts the focus on the wrong problem. I would strongly argue that the churches problem is not centralized around the way we run a service, or the way we do worship, the problem is our lack of focus on God. We can do everything in our power to reach out to the community around us, and make our worship reflect the needs of culture, but if our focus is on us and on what we’re doing, the symptom is treated, but the sickness is still there. When we’re honoring God with our lives and when He is working in us, our eyes are opened to the needs around us, and God gives us what we need and helps us with what to say to the community around us.
When I read his book I am torn between my understanding of the traditional church and the emerging church and the church as simply a group of beleivers, outside of the church itself. Even as a teenager I was frustrated with church process and programming. but I can’t understand how making a church more relevant to the culture around it is going to fix any of the problems. We’re treating symptoms not diseases.
I still need to finish the book, and will before I comment again. It’s not that I disagree with what he says, but I don’t think his solution is going to solve any of the problems the church is facing.