The Humbling of Evangelicalism?

The Mystery Worshipper reports on New Life Church before and after Ted Haggard left. The first report seems to exemplify everything I find distasteful or flat out wrong with American evangelicalism, but the second report gives cause for hope. Hopefully, the Lord will not always have to use such dramatic means to teach humility.

I was talking with my friend Bob the other night about Christian nationalism, and what it should look like in a world where the Great Commission is actually being realized: a world in which Christianity is no longer the property of the West. I am cautiously hopeful about the future - someday soon, American Christians may realize we are not the source of all missions efforts. Someday soon, we may realize that Christendom is dead, and bid good riddance to it.

But we can only renounce our "theology of glory"-like aspirations to power and respectability insofar as we have something to put in their place. Thankfully, God has not left us without a witness. The Christian community development movement offers to us an alternative model of church life, a model in which stewardship does not pertain simply to our money, but to our entire way of life.

What would change if we stopped being the church for the sake of the church and started being the church for the sake of the world?

These are the issues I believe we need to be talking about, and, by God's grace, these are the ones I plan to continue to raise. I'm wondering if I should start a small group to discuss them, with the aim of moving from theory to practice. I spend my days posting resources on community development to the UrbanMinistry.org wiki. So far, though, I haven't gotten much of a chance to read them, much less put them into practice.

I miss the after-school program. I miss service. May God grant me the strength to make a place for it in my life, as I know He calls me to do.