Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom

jason coker

3 Questions About Jesus

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What a great premise:

You’ve just met a young American adult who is utterly irreligious. Having been raised by agnostic parents, their family never attended any kind of religious gathering, and – although they understand what “religion” is and have been exposed to different religious practitioners – they don’t really know anything about Jesus Christ or Christianity. But they’re curious, so – knowing you have something to do with Christianity – they ask you three simple questions:

Who is Jesus Christ?
What has he done?
Why does it matter?

Please provide your simple, sincere, and conversational response in 300 words or less.

This was from an email I got from Jason Coker, who is curating a once-a-week series on his blog called 3 Questions About Jesus. I was really looking forward to participating in this project.

Today my entry in the series went up on Jason’s blog. Leave a comment over there if you want to interact about my entry. And thanks to Jason for putting this series together.

Got Good News?

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Sometimes in our efforts to distance ourselves from the insensitive and ineffective “evangelism” methods of the past, we forget that the gospel of Jesus Christ is, in fact, an announcement of great news. That is has content. That’s why I liked seeing this definition of the gospel from John Dickson (ht):

The gospel is the announcement that God has revealed his kingdom and opened it up to sinners through the birth, teaching, miracles, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will one day return to overthrow evil and consummate the kingdom for eternity.

Of course it’s not simply verbally announcing this message. Dickson goes on to say that we must “promote the gospel with more than just our lips,” but I think the other ditch is also a danger: that we end up trying to “embody” the gospel without ever announcing anything. That we’ll keep a clear conscience, but but won’t have a comprehensible answer to give when people ask us about the reason for the hope we have (1 Pet 3:15-16). That we’ll do our “good deeds” but no one will end up glorifying God because of them (1 Pet 2:12, Matt 5:16), because we were too scared to communicate words about Jesus to people.

It’s also pretty important to think through which words we use to communicate the good news of Jesus, too. That’s why I am really enjoying following Jason Coker‘s weekly guest-author web series called “3 Questions About Jesus.” In 300 words or less, he is asking several people to imagine explaining Jesus to someone who really knew nothing about Christianity. The specific questions are, 1) Who is Jesus the Christ? 2) What has he done? and 3) Why does it matter?

In the realization that we need to be living this out instead of just talking about it, we can’t forget that it’s really important to keep talking about it, too. Because we need both the music and the words. We need service and witness. Proclaiming and promoting. Embodying and communicating.

You Should Read Jason’s Stuff

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I’ll get to the point: my friend Jason Coker writes great, helpful stuff on his blog. Lately I’ve especially appreciated The Tale of Two Gardeners (An Easter Parable), his reading blog on Untamed, and his reading blog on Knowing Christ Today.

He’s also doing great work in planting a missional community near San Diego, among other things. He is also going to seminary nearly full-time, he and his wife both work, and they have two children at home. As a creative way to make ends meet, Jason announced a membership drive for his blog that will help them continue to support their missional projects.

It’s kind of like public radio: you become a “member” by donating $25 per year, and you get some cool stuff, too. I think Jason is doing some great work, and I benefit greatly from his writing, so I became a member. You can, too!

Why Evangelism Gives Us the Creeps

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Ever wonder why evangelism gives you the creeps? If it doesn’t, don’t worry about reading the rest of this post.

A few days ago I wrote about where the story of the Gospel really starts, which is an important question. But for most of the kinds of people that populate our community, the mere mention of the word “evangelism” evokes nausea. It’s not because they don’t want to share their faith with others, and it’s not because they don’t think it’s important. It’s because they know it’s important, but they can’t shake the image of it that’s been burned into their minds by the way it’s been done in America for the past few decades.

[Read more…] about Why Evangelism Gives Us the Creeps

50 Days with the Sermon on the Mount

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Our church community is starting a 50-day journey through the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a sermon series combined with daily exercises that encourage us to explore the meaning and implications of Jesus’s famous words in Matthew 5-7. I am praying that it propels us further in maturity and fruitfulness as apprentices of Jesus, and helps us practice being a “Jesus-y” community.

Christ Church Website

If you’d like to participate online, please feel free! Head over to Christ Church’s provisional blog (meaning: the site will morph before your very eyes as I find time to work on things!) and participate in the exercises each day. Post thoughts in the comments or get together with others to reflect on what God seems to be doing in your life as you interact with the Sermon.

I have always been haunted by the Sermon on the Mount, and had planned to preach through it this fall, leading into Advent (which begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving). I got the idea to do the daily exercises from Jason Coker, who is leading his community through a 50-day exploration of the Sermon (they’re on Day 44 today). Jason generously allowed us to use the exercises he developed in any way we saw fit, so we’re adopting some of them wholesale, adapting others, and writing a few of our own.

Hope you can join us on the journey!