Saturday, January 31, 2009

Community or Affinity?

About a year ago at some event in Peoria, Mark Driscoll discussed evangelicalism's fad du jour, "community." He says:

"Today the big buzzword is community. And really what it is, is affinity. Community is people who are different coming together. Affinity is people who are alike hanging out. We live in a world where, in the name of community, there's a lot of affinity."

So whether your church is full of 20ish dudes with soul patches wearing untucked black shirts and carrying ESVs with stylized crosses on the cover, or whether it looks more like a couple hundred 40 to 60-something white people carrying 18 pound KJVs and wearing sport coats and flowered dresses, you're probably looking at an unhealthy organism. To put it another way, your church is probably not displaying the character of Jesus Christ and his plan to call out a people to himself from all languages, tribes, and nations.

3 comments:

Reforming Baptist said...

That's true. What I love about my church where I pastor, is that we live in an area with every nation under heaven in one place: The San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area.

Our church has Hispanics, Blacks, Filipinos, Indians, Whites, Older people, middle age, singles, single moms and dads, kids, teens, etc. I love the variety and the unity!

Kent Brandenburg said...

Multiculturalism?

He does call them out. They don't stay in.

Anonymous said...

Ironically, Driscoll's own church is all about affinity and nothing about community...