Friday, July 10, 2009

Youth Pastor Parody

This is hilarious. A send up of "hip" styles of ministry. The guy in the video is a youth pastor, but he's an incarnation of the kind of ministry used for all age groups and demographics. Best quote: "The Word of God... is living... and active... it is powerful... it is more... than I... can deal with... at this stage... of my life..." The video offers a pretty concise critique of some of the problems in the consumerist, market-driven, emotionally manipulative, expression of evangelical Christianity today. No prayer lattes for me!

Must read: Mark Galli in Christianity Today

I was floored when I read Mark Galli's recent blog post. Galli is the Senior Managing Editor of Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of the evangelical world. And in a day when most Christians--from pulpit to pew, liberal to conservative--present the religion of Jesus as one mostly about what you do and your self-driven improvement, Galli tells the truth: The Gospel is about what God does, not what we do. And he tells the truth about the widespread myth among Christians that we believers have "something different" about is. Read what Galli says. Think about it. Agree? Disagree? Either way, you have to respond to the points he raises. The future of the church will be largely determined by how people respond to this issue.