On Liking Jesus and Not the Church

Posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

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Dan Kimbal in his book They Like Jesus But Not the Church, posits the six most common perceptions of the Church among post-Christian 20- and 30-somethings.  These are:

1) The Church is an organized religion with a political agenda.

2) The Church is judgmental and negative.

3) The Church is dominated by males and oppresses females.

4) The Church is homophobic.

5) The Church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.

6) The Church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

While your first reaction may be one of defensiveness, it is important that church leaders think about these ideas and learn to cultivate friendships outside of the circle of our church.  If we are to be like Jesus, whom these people think very fondly of, then we must learn to go among those that are not like us and teach them who Jesus really was.  For more thoughts by Kimball see http://www.sermoncentral.com/article.asp?article=a-Dan_Kimball_03_05_07