Two weeks ago I visited New Orleans for the second time, this time I had the privilege of being shown around by a resident. There are some cities that I think you could visit as an outsider and still come to know the city fairly well, New Orleans is not one of those cities. I know my first trip was clearly one of a tourist and the impression that I left with is very much the one I arrived with, that New Orleans is a city of debauchery. It took a local perspective to shift my focus from that of consuming what I thought someone else’s culture was to participating in it myself. What this meant for my most recent trip was going to a brass band concert that started well after I’m typically asleep as well as eating shrimp in as many forms as possible including: as bbq shrimp, roast beef and fried shrimp po’ boys and shrimp etouffee. For real, shrimp is delicious.
Being in New Orleans for a few days, hanging out with church planters, opened my eyes to a couple things. First of all, the intentionality behind planting a church in a certain area. The necessity of being familiar with the culture in which you are planting was something that I didn’t think too much about before this trip, but it became so clear that ministry must be adapted to culture. For example, ministry in the Midwest looks totally different than in the South. It’s not that the gospel message changes, but rather how it is conveyed and what the expected response should be. This was quite radical to me, although it really shouldn’t have been. I think that in some ways this is where the traditional church has let people down. Too many churches have sought to bring their message to people without first understanding the people they are trying to reach. Sorry for the rant.
Secondly, I was struck by the power of the gospel and the need to have churches that are passionate about living the gospel out in community. In raising support to join staff at Veritas I have at times lost sight of what it is that church is all about, the weight of sin exceeded only by the glory of Christ’s sacrifice. Being surrounded by people who were so excited to see the gospel transform their city brought me back to truth. All of this was solidified this past week in studying 1 Corinthians 13, the infamous chapter on love. Coming to the understanding that love is not a checklist of things to be accomplished, but rather seeing that I will never love or be fruitful in ministry without first seeing love in the person of Jesus was really convicting. Before all things I must recognize that I am nothing without the love of Christ, not only that, but anything I do if not through the scope of love is worthless.
Since I haven’t been too faithful in updating my blog, I thought that if I put what I’m thinking about writing next at the end of the post I may actually do it. So I guess this is my form of blog accountability. Hopefully in the next week I will have a post that gives more details of my heart for church plants.
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