Prepare to be offended. And then prepare to repent!

I am seeing a VERY disturbing trend in the "Church" that wears Christ's name. That trend is a movement towards a sanitized biblical theology that is seeking to make the full counsel of God's Word less and less offensive. Don't get me wrong, there have been and certainly are embarrassingly ugly responses to social evils etc. Some Christians truly need to learn to keep their mouths shut or at least learn some wisdom about when and where and how to open them. But frankly, I believe those abuses are quite aberrant if you were to review the full spectrum of all Christian responses to all of life over a long period of time. The problem is that the ridiculous or truly hateful responses to culture are the ones that get the press, make the blogs, and go viral on the internet giving the impression that they are representative of Christians and Christendom in general. This has been so effective that otherwise good thinking followers of Christ are buying into the same misinformation campaign being waged by the king of lies and the well meaning Christians are being used by him to unwittingly defeat the very Gospel they love. In my current sermon series about Christians in Culture, I am working towards dismantling the deception with the hopes of restoring the church--our church at least--to understanding the role of the church in society. The bottom line is that Christ was offensive; if He wasn't He wouldn't have been crucified, He would have been crowned. Well meaning Christians today seemed to have lost site of this and its implications for the body of Christ on earth today called the "Church." You can listen to the foundational messages already posted to our web site at fefchurch.org and clicking the sermons tab. Then right click on the sermon title and you will be able to burn a CD or make an MP3 file. A week from Sunday I will be referencing a "Christian" blogger named Rachel Evans who has posted another typical "Here's what's wrong with the hateful, always-in-the-wrong/doing-it-wrong-Church" such that we--the Church ie., Christians are losing a generation. I'll have shocking news from the only source of True Truth--God's Word--revealing the awful flaws in this latest, "sexy" assault against the one Jesus calls His bride.