5.22.2007

Doing Justice and Preaching Grace


One of the books I am reading this summer is Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace by Harvie Conn. I had to buy the book used as it seemingly is no longer published. The author taught at Westminster in Philly for several years and went to be with the Lord in 1999. He covers a lot of ground fast, or rather concisely. Discussing barriers to our evangelism he writes....

Racism is a part of the mythology that inhibits our message. Not the white hooded kind that burns crosses on lawns, but the sophisticated variety that runs in culture shock from a changing neighborhood to the mission compound security of the suburbs....
Writing on pastoral care (aka Listening) he quotes Bonhoeffer....
The first service that one owes to others consists in listening to them. Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians have forgotten the ministry that listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they would share. We would listen with teh ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.
This time his own words...
Without a pastoral dimension the offense of the gospel too easily is understood as the offensiveness of the church. The unchurched have no perception of a loving God who accepts persons while they are yet sinners.

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