Why The Passion ‘outreach’ was all hype, and I didn’t fall for it. By Brian McLaren, Leadership columnist

The music was appropriately dramatic: bass strings, heavy and resonant, with a mezzo-forte attack and building to fortissimo from there. Then, against a stark black background, a promotional slogan appeared in bold white capitals. It grew, filling the screen’s full width: PERHAPS THE BEST OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY IN 2,000 YEARS.

I was watching a video to promote the release of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of The Christ. One expects hype at such moments, but this slogan made me wince. It defines, I think, a frontier between two worlds.

In one world, modern American Christians can be trusted to bounce and bound like golden retrievers from one silver-bullet “outreach opportunity” to the next-seeking single source shortcuts to complete our mission, which we hope to finish as soon as possible, I guess so we can all get to heaven so the world and its troubles are left behindT. Maybe it’s a boxed set of books and videos, mass rallies, radio/TV/satellites, the Internet, PowerPoint, or seeker services. Or else it’s adult contemporary praise music, electing Republicans, or a new booklet or tract. Maybe it’s candles! Or a new model (take your pick from traditional-modern, contemporary-modern, or postmodern-modern) for “doing church.” Or a new film.

In the other world-which many of us are calling the emerging culture (post-Enlightenment, post-Christendom, post-colonial, etc.)-we are watched with amusement, pity, cynicism. There they go again, emerging culture people say about us, unimpressed.

After enough hype-induced disappointments to abash even ever-optimistic American evangelicals-after being drained and perhaps even disillusioned by enough campaigns and programs that didn’t deliver what they promised-will we be ready to do what we find it oh so painful and hard to do? To slow down and think deep?

For example, we might wonder why slogans like The Passion’s appeal to us.

Emerging culture people are, no doubt, as sensitive as anyone else to dramatic, multisensory, rational-plus-emotional presentations. Special effects can impress them. But they’re also suspicious of the whole business. They’re looking for something that can’t be “produced” but which can only be created: Authenticity. Reality. Honesty. Fruit.

That last word, of course, has special resonances to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Think of the difference between produce (like fruit) and products (like films, radio broadcasts, boxed programs, etc.). Think of something that must be the organic outgrowth of genuine health and vitality versus something that can be produced with money and technical savvy.

Jesus didn’t say it was by our clever outlines, memorable mnemonics, snazzy programs, and special effects that we would be known as his disciples, or that he would be known as sent from God. Rather, he said, it was by our love that we and he would be known, and by our fruit: our good works that shine in darkness and inspire all to glorify God.

No doubt, Mel G’s film will be powerful and will help many-millions, I hope-for it is a sincere labor of love about the ultimate labor of love. But it’s not the greatest outreach opportunity in 2,000 years, at least, not for the emerging culture. I’ll tell you what is.

Actually, I won’t, because there isn’t one thing. Rather, there are uncountable great outreach opportunities. For example, there are millions of people, precious to God, dying of AIDs. And their orphans too. Do you want the emerging culture to sit up and take notice? Don’t show them another movie, however great it is. Show them Christians around the world (starting with those who have been given the most: us)

who care and give and love and move to serve.

There are millions of poor Muslims who see the West as decadent, strident, arrogant, selfish, careless, and pugilistic, and of course, they are right. Can you see how offering them a fine movie could just make things worse? Instead, why don’t we show them some Christians (in the West but not of it) who are honest, upright, peacemakers, compassionate, humble, and generous?

Our world is torn by ethnic, class, and religious hatred. Don’t show the emerging culture a movie about Jesus: show them a movement of people living like Jesus-people who like him love the different, even the enemy, whose doors are open and tables are set with welcome.

Brian McLaren is pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in metro Washington, D.C.

Copyright http://www.LeadershipJournal.net <http://www.leadershipjournal.net/> . Reproduced with permission.

Tim Winton on the death of Jesus

Australian author Tim Winton has been grappling with how to best pass on his Christian faith to his children. Tim tells the story of being in Ireland one Easter and feeling unable, because of the political situation, to side with either side. Even so, they had a family tradition of telling a Jesus story. One Good Friday, they went to bed early to escape the cold:

“We were in a windswept lonely place. My son, Jesse, had reached an age where he had a religious faith of his own, a vulnerable childlike faith. But I hadn’t brought up the whole central part of the story with him, the part about the crucifixion. It was just something I couldn’t bring myself to introduce to him. It’s a violent and distasteful thing.

On Good Friday, however, Jesse asked for a Jesus story so Tim took a deep breath and launched into the details of the passion. He suspects that he had heard the story so many times from others that he had forgotten its power.

Jesse couldn’t believe that Jesus had come to this. I tried to describe the way they put the nails in the cross and the road to Golgotha and so on. I was in a complete state of nakedness psychologically telling the story to Jesse. I couldn’t get through the description without being torn and budding tears. Nor could he. Before I got to the end, he was there already. The very idea that his Jesus could have this happen to him was absolutely heartbreaking. So much so that I got caught up in it and completely overlooked the part about the resurrection. We lay there on this little narrow bed and howled for about twenty minutes. Almost as if we had lived through it ourselves. I had to basically then pick myself up. I thought, What can I do for this child? I’ve dashed the hopes and dreams of his infant faith. Then I remembered there was all this other stuff about the resurrection. He wasn’t going to go to sleep. So we continued. We got through the tomb and the appearances and all that. The effect it had on him was almost beatific. I felt like he went to sleep in this swoon of happiness. Saved by the bell. I climbed down from that ladder a completely renewed person.

Tim now sees this simple story as one of the most critical religious experiences of his life. ‘I felt like I’d rediscovered something. I realised what had sustained my faith as a child, apart from all the institutional frustrations, was the purity and power of all the stories which add up to the big story. And which I claim I know now as my story. I felt better about myself as a writer as a result. I felt I was doing something that was more than superfluous.”