Of Gnats And Camels...Continued from page 2

Yet, the gospel transcends all cultural and generational differences because in the gospel the most basic of human needs is satisfied with the only thing that can satisfy the human heart ? God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. We will choke on the gnat that teaches that teenagers cannot worship with the elderly and that people of different cultures cannot serve together, yet swallow silent bigotry, insensitivity, ageism and the homogenous unit concept that has infiltrated the churches.

We are straining on the gnat of the traditional vs. the contemporary. I have come to personally despise the terms traditional and contemporary. Why? Because it robs each term of its best use! Tradition is best used to describe those things that carry over from one generation to the next and that seem to transcend cultural shifts. Contemporary is simply a word to describe what is current, new, altered and different. However, for some the term traditional has come to describe that which is resistant, stubborn, lacking vision and narrow-minded. The term contemporary has come to mean shallow, fleeting, temporary and meaningless. In other words, we will swallow unsound doctrine and shallow spiritualism, but choke on our differences, both cultural and generational. Further, both traditional and contemporary models of church life will choke on self-important and fleeting methods, and yet swallow the fact that some things never change but are often over-looked, i.e. doctrinal fidelity, spiritual fellowship, meaningful ministry, the glorification of God.

My deepest concern is that while we are choking on these gnats we are simultaneously swallowing some huge camels, i.e. unsound teaching, doctrinal ambiguity, personality-driven leadership, competition with the entertainment world and the adoption of unbiblical priorities that rob us of the joy of passionate, God-centered worship, personal evangelism and worldwide missions.

No matter the methods and techniques we utilize, we cannot, we must not abandon “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” At the same time, we must choose methods that augment and promote biblical fidelity and our missional, evangelistic purposes knowing that the gospel was never intended to be contained in old wineskins. I would rather eat a gnat ? methods and styles that change from generation to generation even if they’re not my personal preference ? than I would to swallow, as if unimportant, the great truths of Scripture that never change. It is time for the church to lift her head up from choking on the minimal and non-essential to see the fields that are ripe with the harvest of human souls.

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Kevin Shrum is Senior Pastor of Inglewood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.