The Sky is Falling!?!

I’m only supposed to be reading books that relate to three things: my thesis, sermons I’m preparing, and books I’m reviewing.

Good thing I break that rule or else I wouldn’t come across books like The Sky is Falling!?! by Alan Roxburgh.

Found this inside which relates quite well to my thesis:

Throughout Western societies, and most especially in North America, there has occurred a fundamental shift in the understanding and practice of the Christian story. It is no longer about God and what God is about in the world; it is about how God serves and meets human needs and desires. It is about how the individual self can find its own purposes and fulfillment. More specifically, our churches have become spiritual food courts for the personal, private, inner needs of expressive individuals.

That’s it exactly. The problem my thesis is addressing is preaching that is anthropocentric, that is more about God fitting into our plans than us being absorbed into what God is doing. Preaching becomes more about how to have a good life than about God.

The result is a debased, compromised, derivative form of Christianity that is not the gospel of the Bible at all. The biblical narrative is about God’s mission in, through, and for the sake of the world and how God has called human beings to be part of God’s reaching out to that world for God’s purpose of saving it in love.

Well said. Theocentric preaching is ultimately missional preaching.

Looks like a great read. Wish I could have met Roxburgh when he pastored in Toronto.