LEADERSHIP: The REVEAL research points out that many in our churches are “growing in Christ” or “close to Christ,” but not so many are “Christ-centered.” What’s it take to move people into a Christ-centered life?
They have to see it, feel it, touch it to get a vision of what it would be like to live a totally Christ-centered life. Can you expect people in the church to be Christ-centered if the pastor isn’t?
Second, as pastor I have to teach that such a condition actually exists, that there are people in today’s world, as broken as it is, who are full-on for God, who want Christ to be the center of their lives and the guide to all their decisions.
As pastors, we easily get caught up in perceptions of success—gatherings well-filled feel better than half-filled rooms. Budgets met feel better than budgets not met. So it’s easy to confuse external signs of a church’s health with the extent of internal heart transformation going on.
Church leaders have to start asking a different set of questions. Instead of the activity questions, we need to ask the intimacy questions: are you loving God and loving your neighbors more? Instead of “Is Jesus my friend?” we will be asking “Is Jesus the authority and guide for my life?”
Are the stages prior to a “Christ-centered” life rightly called “consumer Christianity”?
You have to be careful about that, because the term is repugnant. People “growing in Christ” don’t feel like they’re using Christ for their own aims. They may simply not be aware that there’s another step in their life, where they exchange their plans for Christ’s agenda. So I try not to paint earlier segments as selfish bad guys, but I point out that you can take steps to trust Christ even more.
Often what keeps a person “close to Christ” from becoming “Christ-centered” is that, at a deep level, he or she doubts the goodness of God: “I don’t know if God is good enough to put together a plan for my future that’s better than the one I can put together for myself.” We’re asking people to bet the farm on the goodness of God.
Christ-centered people often testify that experiences of pain, hardship, failure, or misery were catalysts to deeper intimacy with Christ.
That plays a huge role, and if I could arrange for a certain amount of redemptive pain in everyone’s life—everyone’s life but mine [laughter]—I would do it, because suffering usually has a more profound influence on someone’s life than my preaching or yours.
What can sermons accomplish?
They paint the vision of what a Christ-centered person looks like. At times people don’t end up there because they can’t imagine anything more for them to move to. So I talk about a person moving to higher levels of intimacy and trust.
As pastors, we’re tempted to think it’s our job to move people toward Christ-centeredness.
Our job is to teach the Scriptures in a way that makes the path clear, to paint a vision of what maturity looks like, to live it out in front of them, and to arrange what the church offers, as appropriate, to partner with them on the journey.
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