Answering questions that are not being asked.

[Stan]

So true...  Phil is one of the good guys.

[Tom Wetmore]

And that is ultimately why we lose half as many as we gain in converts. They stay long enough to realize their questions are not the ones being addressed.

[Gerr]

If the questions - where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going - are not the questions that we are addressing,  please, give us a list of these questions we should be addressing.

[Lauralea]

Sharing the health message comes to mind as possible meaningful common ground

[Gail]

Making Christ meaningful to the inner ponderings helps.

[LifeHiscost]

And that is ultimately why we lose half as many as we gain in converts. They stay long enough to realize their questions are not the ones being addressed.

The person that leaves is ultimately responsible for his/her own decision. That is the reason why the importance of studying the Word for one's self.

 

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth....2 Timothy 2

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

[Stan]

If the questions - where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going - are not the questions that we are addressing,  please, give us a list of these questions we should be addressing.

 

 

That is so true.... people for the most part, are not coming to see if they can be forgiven but exactly the question you said.

[Stan]

It is older SDA's that only want to hear about grace every other sentence...  it makes it sound so cheap.

[Gregory Matthews]

Gerry, post # 3:

 

Those are the questions that brought a generation of people to us in the past.  Today, we face a generation of people who do not have a primary concern over those questions.   (NOTE:  I did not say that they were not concerned with those questions.  I said that those questions are not their primary concern.)

 

What are the issues of primary concern to this generation?  I do not consider myself an expert qualified to answer.  Rather, I consider that I am on the cusp of the answer and just at the elementary states of understanding.  I am still learning.

 

This generation is coming to us and getting answers to the questions that you raise, if they do not have such answers before they come to us.  They are then leaving us if they do not find us attempting to provide them with answer to their primary questions. 

 

Life, post # 6:

 

Personal study of the Word of God, the Bible, is critically important.  People today are also looking to experience the Word of God, the Bible, in their lives today.  On that they may need   help beyond self-study.

[LifeHiscost]

Life, post # 6:

 

Personal study of the Word of God, the Bible, is critically important.  People today are also looking to experience the Word of God, the Bible, in their lives today.  On that they may need   help beyond self-study.

I have found that even after living over 50 years of life in touch with the Word, God still asks of me to exercise as many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as is necessary to live in "one accord" with my brother and sisters in the Body of Christ.

 

14These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with [the] women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers....Acts 1

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

[Gerr]

So what are those questions we are not answering?

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

The person that leaves is ultimately responsible for his/her own decision. 

 

hopefully, you don't kick them as they go out the door...

[CoAspen]

The Question. Why is the life that Christ lead while on earth not the focus of organizations claiming to be His church.

What was the work of Christ? Healing, teaching, bringing hope, unshackling the souls from the bondage of the religious leaders, living with out fear for their eternal life, seeking a relationship once again with His creation. The work of His Father, God.

 

Speaking from my own experience and also through the eyes and minds of my children, We have not advanced from the days of Christ on earth. The .orgs continually 'circle the wagons', bicker about who is in charge, worry about correctness in everything, keep saying the 2nd coming is just around the corner, for decades, making list of what a person must do to prove they are saved, in other words the same as ancient Israel. We discuss prophecies always looking for the latest and greatest 'truth', traveling in circles. Reminds me of a desert crossing from history.

 

We do not even know how to be help those in need, we have a list of items for determining worthiness, before attempting. We spend our time worrying about this group or that group, which is it going to bring the end of the world. Christ had a simple message and life, treat other as your self, lighten the load of those in need, listen to the voice of God, Holy Spirit, and believe in Christs words, Believe in me and you shall have eternal life.

 

What do people look for, doers, those that walk the talk. Has nothing to do with 'cheap' salvation, although that is a truth, not looking for man made steps or hoops to jump through, the relationship with Christ determines a persons life.  When will the followers of Christ reproduce what He produced in His short life on this earth?

 

I see no great mystery, just a reluctance the escape the bondage of being in control rather than God in control. We need a earthquake shift in our thinking and focus.

[Bravus]

When the question that is asked is "What does it mean to be a good person and live a good life?" (a question at least as old as the Greek philosophers and likely as old as humanity), the answers offered need to be real. The post a little while ago about beliefs and actions is apposite. When we spend so much time telling people they are wrong - not just their beliefs but their very selves - we are not answering that first question.

[Gregory Matthews]

Nathan Brown & Joanna Darby, Editors.  DO JUSTICE: OUR CALL TO FAITHFUL LIVING. Signs Publishing Company, Australia.  2014, 182 pages.

 

The above book consists of 29 chapters, plus a Forward and an Introduction.  The chapters were written by about 25 authors.

 

Reading the above book will give you some  idea of one subset of the questions and issues that this generation are facing.  It will not give you everything. 

 

NOTE:  The Signs Publishing Company is a SDA publishing company.  It is beginning to publish provocative books in Adventism and in my thinking is beginning to fill a role that Southern Publishing Association filled here in the U.S. prior to it being shut down.

[Tom Wetmore]

I think perhaps the emphasis of observation of the topic title and the OP is on the questions the Church seems most preoccupied with, rather than the multitude of possible questions that the culture are asking.   We are simply focusing on issues that are of no interest to the culture that surrounds us, and in fact many of our own are very much a part of.  We have marginalized ourselves from culture and they lose interest in our increasingly irrelevant obsessions. 

[Tom Wetmore]

The OP quote is from chapter 4 of  Phil Cooke's book "Branding Faith:  Why Some Churches and Non-profits Impact Culture and Others Don't".  Here is a screen shot of the context of the quote:

 

[Tom Wetmore]

He continues:

 

 

 

[Tom Wetmore]

And then this:

 

 

 

[Tom Wetmore]

Continuing:

 

[Tom Wetmore]

And finally:

 

 

[Gail]

It seems that the church is failing in helping Christians know how to live. I don't mean in telling them dos and don'ts, but in teaching them how to dig into their Bibles for the answers to those questions. Many are far too dependent on their pastors to do that digging for the precious gems the Bible holds which are timeless.

[CoAspen]

May be, Gail, that is an issue, but without a relationship reading your Bible will avail very little.

The age we live in is very much about me, my rights, what I want. When you are in a real relationship with someone that focus changes. When a person feels safe about that relationship the natural desire is to please. Christ said, believe in me and be saved. When that takes place the individual feels safe and will seek to increase that relationship.  Since the beginning forces have sought to take away that 'safety' with success.  More is spent on questioning that safety than maintaining it through a relationship with Christ. .Orgs have sought and still continue to caution people about feeling safe in their desire for making sure the individual is doing all the correct things to order to maintain 'safety'. Humans want to control instead of letting the Holy Spirit be the guide.

[JoeMo]

Amen, CoAspen!  I believe that if we let Him, the Spirit will lead us into all truth; through revelation, study, or circumstance.  If we seek Him with all our hearts (i.e., crave relationship with Him), we shall surely find Him.  Exact, irrefutable knowledge of doctrine will not save us; belief in and relationship with the Messiah will.

[Bravus]

(side note/pet peeve: 'postmodern' is not an era, it's a worldview. It exists right now along with modernism)