Mind the Gap
If
you have ever been to London, you are familiar with the “tube,” London’s
expansive underground transport system. Once
there, a constant refrain - over loudspeakers and on signs - is “Mind the
Gap.”
The
line is so ubiquitous, and so closely tied to London’s ethos, that the phrase
has become one of the more popular for tourists to buy on t-shirts.
The
“gap” to be “minded,” of course, is that which exists between the train and the
platform so that you don’t get your foot caught between the two. If you don’t mind the gap, your foot will
fall through the crack.
So
“mind” it.
There
are, of course, many “gaps” to be mindful of.
For
example, many are keenly aware of the gaps that exist in their life between
income and expense, or calories ingested and calories burned. The worst would have to be the gap between
knowing and doing. For no small reason
has it been said that the longest journey anyone will ever take is the 18
inches between our head and our heart.
But
often overlooked are the gaps plaguing the church.
Here
are six to consider:
1. The gap between evangelism and
discipleship. The biblical dynamic between evangelism and
discipleship is, of course, anything but a dichotomy. We are to engage in both. But in practice, many churches put their
energies in one or the other. Even more
troubling is how they pit one against the other, as if God made it an
either-or. (He didn’t).
2. The gap between growth and assimilation. Some call this the gap between growing larger
and smaller at the same time. If not “minded,” the “back door”, as they say, is
left wide open. But it’s more than the
“back door.” If it’s all growth, there
is little community. But if there is an
emphasis on community alone, then the church turns inward and growth becomes
stagnant.
3. The gap between cultural relevance and
orthodoxy. Let’s put this more simply: this is the gap between being “in” the world
and “of” it. In truth, most seem to err
on the side of being more “hip” than holy, contemporary than faithful, trendy
than Trinitarian. In other words,
“relevance” tends to win. It is as if
the point is to win the world’s favor, as opposed to winning the world’s
soul. But on the other side are those
who wield their claim to historic truth like a baseball bat, failing to see
that while the message is timeless, the method of presenting it is not. The balance is clear: connect with the
mission field of our day while remaining steadfastly tied to the apostolic
truths.
4. The gap between our community as Christ-followers
and our community with those outside of the faith. This gap is relational, and speaks to the
cloistered life of many faith communities from the world they claim they want
to reach. We live in Christian cliques,
holy huddles, gospel ghettoes, and wonder why we aren’t reaching more people
for Jesus. But even more, our community
as Christ followers is often divorced from the community of those we are most
wanting to reach. The point of being
“salt” is that we are applied directly to those areas most in need of a
preservative to stop the spread of decay. This is more than cultural – it is
primarily relational. No Christian
should be separate from a non-Christian in need of the gospel. If you are, you are not sufficiently “in” the
world.
5. The gap between the vision of community
in the Scriptures and the reality of our day.
We’ve all heard the line that Sunday morning at 11 a.m. is the most
segregated hour in our nation. But I am
increasingly convinced that the issue is less racial than it is
socio-economic. Regardless, whether a
mix of black and white, rich or poor, young or old, the gap is that there isn’t
often much of a mix. Here is the dream
of Jesus: when you walk into a church on
Sunday morning, you will see young and old, black and white, male and female,
lost and found…all hoping for a glimpse of the truth, a taste of the eternal, a
sense of the grace.
6. The gap between vision and leadership. Most leaders are visionaries, but not all
visionaries are leaders. I’ve never met
a pastoral team yet that couldn’t tell me something of their vision. The breakdown was between vision and
practice, vision and reality, vision and execution. Let me put the “gap” this way: if someone
were to offer you $1 million dollars, but to receive it you had to be able to
explain exactly where it would go, and why it would matter… would you get the
money?
So…
…are
you minding the gaps?
James Emery White
Editor’s Note
James Emery White is the founding and
senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the
ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president.
His newly released book is The Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity (Baker Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log-on to www.churchandculture.org,
where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our
archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the
world. Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.
