Friday, October 27, 2006

A2 Bullpen Discussion: John Burke

"You're going to hell." -- Erwin McManus (seriously -- the audience questions are pretty intense about things like "how can you accept people and not confront their sin)
  • I tried to get evangelical Christians to join me in this, but I couldn't because we were so quick to nail people for their sin.
  • One shift that I began to make is that people aren't all that different, either side of the cross...for example, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you've figured out money.

Where do leaders go when they're broken? Do you have a "come as you are" culture for leaders in your church?

  • We have a leadership process in place in our church -- we are very intentional about shepherding and caring for those in leadership.
  • At the same time, it's really messy in terms of our leadership -- the thing that's been difficult in the past year, is that past patterns of sin creep back in, so Matthew 18 has been a huge reality for us in the past year.

If you were doing a series on the top cynicism of millenials, what would they be?

  • there are certain issues that are "hot-button" issues that lead people to Jesus or turn them away. you have to understand the "hot-button" issues (in their culture: what about gays? what about other religions?) When you talk about these issues, you don't use the shotgun approach and just spray sideways comments about...you use a rifle and go right after the issue honestly and directly.
  • People aren't necessarily interested in your answers to those questions, but more your attitude.

We (Christians, non-Christians) are NOT THAT DIFFERENT! (we don't have it all figured out!!)

McManus: "So what you're saying in the most diplomatic way possible, is that is you aren't a 'come as you are' church, you're not a church."

It's really not possible to teach the whole counsel of God in the course of year -- especially when people come every-other-week. So you have to pick some themes and go after them. So we push people to get into Scripture themselves. (JB)

How do you handle divisive people?

  • God doesn't give us a method...he gives us his Spirit...and so we trust the discernment of the Spirit and observe the trajectory of their lives.
  • I don't know how to change a drug addict...I have a hard enough time knowing what God's trying to do in my life...but I can help them take the next step -- I can listen to the Spirit and follow his leading.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! McManus was harsh in this one! What were the reactions of the others on the panel when he told Burke he was goin to hell?
also did McManus give his definition of a church to back up telling Burke his was not a church?

Anonymous said...

yea... i'm kind of curious about what the feel in the place was like when all this was going on. or are we mis-interpreting mcmanus?

thanks for the a2 posts! we almost came... but decided we have enough going on right now.

charlesdean2 said...

I'm sorry...I wasn't perfectly clear.

The session started by Greg Hawkins reading emails from the crowd that were fairly hostile. McManus was just summing up what the emails were saying.

He was laughing and then followed it up by saying, "that's what some people are thinking."

This is what happens when I blog in "real time"!