Christ Church -- Christ Episcopal Church -- Springfield Illinois

Following is Fr. Tournoux's current "Rector's Reflections" article from the Christ Church Tidings Newsletter. This issue and several past issues are available in PDF format. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer in order to view any PDF documents. Please click here to get Acrobat Reader, if needed.

The Evangelization of Postmoderns Through Holistic Cells:

September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010

An Introduction to Postmodernism:
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009

(SEPTEMBER 2010)

For the past several months, we’ve been discussing how worship is another evangelistic dimension of the Upward value. As I stated last month, the use of interactive experiential multi-sensory elements, for instance, provides an atmosphere conducive for Postmoderns to connect with Jesus Christ. Specifically, Icons, incense, prayer beads, drawings, bodily postures (kneeling), and dance (Psalm 30:11), are helpful tangible realities which draw Pre-Christians away from the busyness of life’s demands and onto the Holy Trinity.

Within the cell communal life, Holy Scripture has a unique role in the evangelization process of Postmoderns. First, the Bible is the divinely-inspired infallible authoritative Written Word of God (II Timothy 3:16; II Peter 1:20-21). "We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors" (BCP, 853). "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament [are] the revealed Word of God" (BCP, 877). In addition, "As a book uniquely inspired by God . . . the Bible possesses sacramental power, transmitting grace to the reader, bringing him to a point of meeting and decisive encounter" (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 149), with Jesus Christ the only savior of the world (John 3:16-18, 14:6; Acts 4:12; I Timothy 2:5-6; Hebrews 9:15). Or, as St. Athanasius so eloquently stated, "The holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures are of themselves sufficient to the enunciation of the truth" (William C. Wantland, Foundations of the Faith, 27). Thus, when cell members read and share the Sacred Writings, "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching" (Acts 2:42), pre-Christians experience the person and truth of Jesus Christ. Judy Johnson writes about the extreme value, importance, and place of the Scriptures in cell life for conversion:

Jesus taught by word and example how his followers should live and what they should believe. These earliest believers passed on Jesus’ teaching so that others might believe (Jn. 17:20). They also studied and passed on the Old Testament, particularly those parts pertaining to Jesus. . . . Today we find this teaching gathered in the Old and New Testaments, the Bible. It is our main source of nurture. Our faith and lives develop and grow as we study the Scripture. Our life together is also fed and nourished by the Word of God. The Scriptures point us to Christ the Lord [emphasis added] (Judy Johnson in Good Things Come in Small Groups, by Steve Barker, et al, 84).

Cell groups can practice, moreover, an ancient method of prayer, and the reading and meditating upon Holy Scripture called Lectio Divina, "Divine reading or sacred reading" (Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church, 164). From a historical perspective:

[Monks] would set aside time to repeat out loud a passage from Scripture. When they came upon a word or phrase which stood out from the rest, they would stop to ponder it and pray about it in relation to the rest of the passage. This would go on as the passage was repeated and prayed through in-depth, and the Holy Spirit would bring things to mind (Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church, 164-165).

Put another way, the prayerful process of "hear[ing], read[ing], mark[ing], learn[ing], and inwardly digest[ing]" (BCP, 236) Holy Scripture, engenders a personal encounter with Jesus Christ; "Because God still speaks to us through the Bible" (BCP, 853). Dan Kimball shares several ways Lectio Divina can be practiced:

· Reading a selected passage out loud. The passage can be projected on the screen or printed on a handout, or people can read from their own Bibles, if most of them have the same translation.

· Meditating on a passage. Instead of rushing from one verse to the next, ask the people to silently read a passage over, or the leader can read it to them several times. While it is being read, people can ask the Spirit to allow a word or part of the passage to really stand out to them. The goal is to chew on and experience the passage.

· Praying. After reading a passage several times, allow people to sit quietly, asking the Spirit to guide them in prayer.

This ancient practice is very powerful when done during a worship gathering, sometimes in as little as five to ten minutes (Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church, 165).

Next, the Bible itself serves as an excellent source of sharing the Gospel with pre-Christians in a thorough systematic manner. Donald Whitney writes:

In the Bible God tells us about Himself, and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. The Bible unfolds the Law of God to us and shows us how we’ve all broken it. There we learn how Christ died as a sinless, willing Substitute for breakers of God’s Law and how we must repent and believe in Him to be right with God (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 24).

Please join me next month. Thank you!

Faithfully in Jesus Christ,