1 John 1:8-10
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have
not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
I am in a struggle.
I just finished writing a piece for my job where I define and discuss
the concepts of altruism and narcissism.
The struggle was in how to approach the topic for the secular academic
world. How do you convict the
college student without getting preachy?
I must confess this was a challenge for me personally. I had a hard time citing my work,
because there is a lack of secular research on narcissism in America. We as a culture value the
individual. We like to solve
problems and build stuff. Then we
look back at our work and say to ourselves, “Look at what I accomplished.” It is from this “can do” and
pragmatic attitude that we built this country. Now we in the church are picking up on that message with our
corporate visions for our churches.
We are focused on increasing our motivation, planning for our success
and achieving our potential. Then
we try to add these man-centered ideas to our motivation as Christians to
accomplish God’s will for our lives. Here’s the problem.
God does not need us to have business models to accomplish His
will. He already has the model. It’s our lack of faith in the relevance
of His model that causes us problems.
We look for new ways to make God more relevant. We look for trendy things to bring
people into our churches so they can encounter Jesus. We say that our generation is different and unique (which is
narcissistic to even say). We say
they need a new kind of music style.
They need a special kind of hook.
How about allowing a cross to do the work instead of a hook? It’s like when Jesus talked about
building our house upon a rock instead of on sand in Matthew 7. People will be thinking they are
hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we are actually giving them church
branding. They come to church
because they are searching for truth.
To give them anything other than the cross of Christ is to attempt to
build the church on sinking sand.
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except
Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
