Cultivating a Congregation that Looks Like Heaven
Helpful observations from a recent book review
Brian Davis, pastor of Plaza Baptist Church in Charlotte, recently reviewed In Church as It Is in Heaven. His review brought together some helpful observations that enrich the overall message of the book.
Here’s what Brian had to say:
[Jamaal] Williams and [Timothy Paul] Jones don’t call for Christians to repent for the sins of their ancestors. They do argue we should lament the way some Christians have historically abused the faith to justify racial sins. We should have a godly sorrow over those abuses and the enduring divisions that remain.
The way a congregation responds to sorrow both shapes and reveals a church’s culture.
Lament goes beyond responses to racialized events in the latest news cycle. It is “for those who struggle daily through the shadowlands of depression” (37); it’s a fitting response to couples struggling with infertility or to any sort of tragedy in our world. But lament does include sorrow over the ethnic segregation that continues to dominate our churches.
In Church as It Is in Heaven encourages us to slow down in the face of sorrow and ask, “How did it come to this?” We should be unwilling to accept easy or dismissive answers.
Sorrows run deeper than data. It does no good to tell a childless couple that most people of a certain age can conceive. Similarly, news of racial tensions can’t be silenced with appeals to statistics that seem to minimize the problem.
You can read the rest of his review at The Gospel Coalition here: “Cultivate a Congregation that Looks Like Heaven.”
Well said and presented. I look forward to reading the review.