A good crowd this morning at The Village for the DFW church planters boot camp. Chandler is talking out of Matthew 5:13…Salt and Light. Matt started out talking about the “width” of our churches…and our lack of depth. As I’m listening, I keep thinking about how the evangelical tendency is to speak the Gospel unto “justification” and ignore the power of the Gospel unto “sanctification”. Said another way, we preach and communicate the Gospel so as to walk people past the line of faith, but don’t continue to offer the Gospel as the only answer to their continued problems with lust…pride…arrogance…laziness. You get the point.
Some believe depth is knowledge of the Bible and all things theology…but how can this be so if we don’t live what we believe? Still others say that depth is about living out what we believe…but how can this be depth if we do this with white-knuckled power or with poor motivations?
Depth…how can we ever go deep without seeing the Gospel as our continued hope that goes far beyond the baptism tank?
