Tony Campolo, in a recent podcast, stated that "Christians are called not to be pragmatic: they are called to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus."
Is this contradictory?
There's the comparison in Luke 14:28-32 of someone who is preparing to build a tower or go to war to the cost of discipleship, right?
Are we supposed to consider the costs of discipleship and then make a
decision about it?
The prodigal son seemed pretty pragmatic in his determination of how to get out of the mess he made.
Do we sometimes have to unplug the light on the Jesus picture to plug in the extension cords of live to get something done?
Are we supposed to check our pragmatism at the door?
Are you OK with, "Yeah, but it's just a church thing."
Sometimes I think the church is where you can come and just not have to worry about practicalities and whether or not something works.
We have Sunday evening services because one evening a young man came to the church doors on a Sunday evening, and there was no service at that time, so he shot himself. Right there in the front alcove. You can still see the bullet hole. That's why we have Sunday evening services.
We had 300 reservations for the church dinner and we had about 300 people show up, so it was a success.
We view the stewardship commitment as something sacred between you and God, but we do use them to figure out how much our budget will be, don't we?
It's both and I'm guessing, huh? Sometimes the best way to exemplify the love of Jesus is by careful calculations and determinations of how to proceed and at other times it just happens in spite of us and our figuring.
Is that OK?
I guess the best we can offer is we'll leave the light on for you. Unless we have to plug in some extension cords instead.
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