Cities of God

Rodney Stark is probably not going to be top billing at the next mission and renewal conference. Though I'd love to see him somewhere in the line up.

I recently read his book Cities of God and what an enlightening and provocative little book it was.

Stark is a sociologist by trade, so his approach is quite theoretical at times. However, you can skip most of that (like I did) and find some really thought provoking conclusions.

Here are some of them:

• In the early church the gospel was spread and the church grew through social networks - not mass conversion
• The gospel was not just effective at the margins of society - some pretty influential people turned to Christ - eg Erastus, the city treasurer at Corinth (Romans 16.23)
• Gentiles who were sympathetic to Judaism found Christianity attractive because of the lack of rules
• The gospel often flourished in large cities where the ties to traditional religion were loose.

The above is just a snapshot of Stark's conclusions, but I think they merit some reflection.

If he's right, religious diversity is an opportunity not a threat. Religious diversity indicates a breakdown in old patterns of thinking that are sometimes resistant to the gospel.

Christianity should be preached as a liberation from the rules and strictures of religion. It's worth reminding ourselves that legalism has more than one expression. See this thoughtful post.

The gospel can touch people in the mainstream and upper strata of society as well as those on the fringes. I think this is something that those of us in the Pentecostal /Charismatic world need to learn.

Finally, networks. If Stark is correct, the recent concept of social networking is the best news for those who want to spread the gospel in a long time. That might mean that effective evangelism in the 21st century will partly entail building social networks. So parties, Starbucks, Facebook et al. could be big keys to evangelism in our time. Your leisure time can be transformed into something effective for the kingdom! Whatever next?!

See the review at Google Books here

Just get ten (or twelve,perhaps?)

I am so pleased to have discovered Seth Godin and his blog. I find his posts are though provoking and really challenge the kind of conventional wisdom that is rapidly becoming unwisdom.

At one level, Seth's posts are marketing related. At another, you gain an insight into the way society works in the early twenty-first century. I would recommend anyone who wants to reach the world of today to read his blog. I realise that the preceding sentnence might not make sense - after all what other world can we reach other than the one of today? Sometimes, however, our thinking is more appropriate to reaching the world of yesteryear.

The post First,ten, I think, is very helpful in understanding how ideas spread in our world. This could help us in our thinking about mission and discipleship. I seem to remember that Someone Else started out with a similar sized group - twelve in His case.

Tribes

A couple of weeks ago I posted a video clip of Seth Godin. Steve Addison has posted directions for a free download of Godin's Tribes. This link will take you there.

If you want to know why you need a tribe, watch the video at cookiesdays

All a waste of time?

Since we've been on the subject of social networking sites, here's some thoughts from Seth Godin. In fairness, the question is being put to him in the context of business, but his comments are interesting.

Godin's considered a (big) bit of a marketing guru. You can find his blog here.

Look forward to your comments.