Ever since visiting Mars Hill Church in Seattle, I have been reading Mark Driscoll's The Radical Reformission. I really like how Mark writes. He has really nailed the major divisions and camps in modern Christianity. He boiled down some of the major philosophies with some nifty formulas. Here's a look:
Gospel+Culture-Church=Parachurch
Culture+Church-Gospel=Liberalism
Church+Gospel-Culture=Fundamentalism
Mark wrote in his book, "When we fail to love our Lord, neighbor, and brother simultaneously, we bury our mission in one of three holes: the parachurch, liberalism, or fundamentalism...Reformission is ultimately about being like Jesus, through his empowering grace...Rules, regulations, and the pursuit of outward morality are ultimately incapable of preventing sin. They can only, at best, rearrange the flesh and get people to stop drinking, smoking, and having sex only to start being prod of their morality...Reformission requires that God's people understand their mission with razor-sharp clarity. The mission is to be close to Jesus. This transforms our hearts to love what he loves, hate what he hates, and to pursue relationships with lost people in hopes of connecting with them and, subsequently, connecting them with him. This actually protects us from sin, because the way to avoid sin is to not to avoid sinners but to stick close to Jesus."
Mark identifies what happens when a church, ministry or Christian ends up in a ditch. We can't ignore culture, deny the power of the Gospel, or walk away from the church and expect God's best. For some reason, it is real easy to get two of the three right and miss one critical element. God wants to raise up a generation of leaders who get all three and knows how they should work together to bring reformission.
