ChurchPlanting.com

Writing is strategic.
So is speaking.
All forms of communicating the good news of Jesus’ life is connected with a combination of:
1. Thinking strategically, and
2. Thinking of the person in front of you as a unique one who is worthy of unique communication.

Any writer who is wise is keenly aware of several factors when putting together his article or book…

- who is the intended audience…

- where are they spiritually…

- what is the intent with the piece that is being written…

This list of questions / factors goes on. The point of a particular article I am writing is to communicate to a Jewish and general church audience the power of the kindness of God based on the Old and New Testaments.

I know from experience that the Jewish audience will read the name “Jesus” one time and will discard the rest of the article. In writing that I am in no way back-peddling on the centrality of Jesus. It is a matter of what to say and when to say it considering the audience I am connecting with. This is part of the “wise as a serpent” issue Jesus called us to. I could explain this in more detail but won’t do that now - will be the focus of a long latte / double chicken burrito at Chipotles if you can make it down to the Tampa, Florida area this fall.

When I was younger I saw things in one dimensional terms. That is, I didn’t have a concept of such things as…

1. A long-term strategy…
- the “planting, watering, harvesting” thinking of Paul (1 Cor. 3:6).
Clearly Jesus lived this strategy.
Americans tend to miss the forest due to the trees. If you read broadly, from among non-American writers who are every bit as committed to “solo scriptura” as you or me, you will notice as I have that other cultures tend to be able to see more clearly from the “30,000 perspective” than we naturally see.

Our concept of being biblical, as biblical Americans, has tended to be oriented to “show me the chapter, verse, and the specific Greek word to parse and I will believe what you are saying…”

Sometimes it really is that simple.
At other times we can miss the obvious due to our tendency to be locked into the myopic perspective.

2. A ramping up strategy…
When serving people we usually keep our encounters to the generic “God” at first… however, as we train our people, there are lots of synonyms that we use to challenge people into re-thinking their concept of God. We want to nudge them toward a biblical idea versus something they have adopted as what I call “bar-room theology.” Bar-room theology is the universal thoughts about God that tend to be very consistent in major world cities - it is amazing how consistent they are. All the more reason to believe there is a dark strategy behind all of this. You know you are hearing bar-room theology when you hear someone utter, “Everybody knows that…is the way it is…”

This is man’s attempts to explain life without the tracks of scripture. Example: “Everybody knows… that the Bible has been re-translated so many times… there is just no way to depend upon the accuracy of it’s message now… what once upon a time might have been God’s word for the world, is now so corrupt it is not dependable… everybody knows that!”

I had heard that from numbers of people along the way prior to coming to Jesus. Naturally, that is something I looked into at some length - but only after I came to Jesus.

Sometimes people hit on us for not saying Jesus every time we serve others… “We are serving you to show you Jesus’ love in a practical way.” The truth is…we say what we say after serving someone differently each time.

I often say “this is Jesus’ love…”

I talk about the absolute necessity for each of us to be dialed into the very presence of Jesus in each situation. Jesus did this with each individual he connected with. We owe it to those we serve to do nothing short of that.

When I am writing I listen to the Spirit so I can most wisely write or phrase all that I am seeking to put across.

Thus, I will never say “always” say thus and such. It doesn’t work that way.

Some well-intentioned people are of the mindset that all things need to be categorically confined to easily defined boxes.

That is all fine, but again, that is all a part of the maintenance mind-set, not the expansion mind-set . As a church starter, you are a catalyst, not a maintainer.