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As we planted the first seeds of our church in this place, I was repulsed by the expectation to turn the gospel into something that could fit people's schedules or provide immediate, quick-fix spiritual benefits. But in response to the sins of suburbia, I went to the other extreme. I became phobic about our church becoming a supermarket-like pseudo-community providing spiritual goods and services to all comers. With too much self-assurance, I preached sermons on how the church must define its very existence as the extension of God's mission in the world. Drawing on the great formulations of missional thinkers Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch, I proudly taught that the church was an extension of the Trinity, gathering the world unto himself. The mission of God would be our very identity, and its cosmic scope would dwarf the forces that seek to shrink our vital gospel into some banal conformity.

My intentions were good, and Bosch and Newbigin still sound as good as ever. But how does this gospel become comprehensible for those lost in the suburbs? Can this incredible vision of God's work meet those of us who are poor on time, devoid of deep human connection, and with little energy left after 6 P.M. to tend to the mission of God?

In those first few years of ministry at Life on the Vine Christian Community, Jack and Suzanne (not their real names) came to us with divorce papers in hand, asking for help. They knew little of the gospel. They had no time for church. Their art careers were the center of their lives, and they couldn't imagine it any other way. Nonetheless, Jack managed to hang out with a group of us meeting for confession and prayer every Monday night. One ugly sin after another would come up in Jack's life (as for us all). Together, we would deal with each sin, working out repentance and the forgiveness of Christ in this man's life. There were some holy moments. Nonetheless, the sins would persist.

One night, as Jack's marijuana addiction was being dealt with for what seemed the hundredth time, two men in the group lashed out. They asked Jack if he was serious about Christ. If not, they said, he should excuse himself from the group. Jack soon wandered away.

Some might be quick to say that Jack had flat-out rejected the gospel. I hesitate to make that judgment. From my vantage point, Jack just couldn't get it. He thought he was doing what he was supposed to do: confess sin, repent, receive forgiveness, and go home and try harder. Yet each time, forgiveness and repentance would become the means to the same old ends. He could not grasp the full implications of how God's forgiveness through Christ might actually change his living. For all our attempts to paint a big picture of God's mission for Jack, he could not understand what it meant to reorient his entire life toward God in this way. He could not envision the grander life he had been called into.

For me, Jack illustrated the central problem: The wide-reaching implications of the gospel were inaccessible to someone thoroughly shaped by the structures of contemporary society. Surely we know that only the Holy Spirit could ultimately illumine Jack's heart. Nonetheless, I questioned whether our community's life and deep sense of God's mission had been accessible to Jack. He did not have time to make it to every Sunday gathering. Our initiation process into baptism took six months. This was daunting to even the most committed.

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September 2008, Vol. 52, No. 9