Unleashed

 "Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they're here disturbing our city," they shouted.  Acts 17:6

Pastor, author, and teacher Mark Buchanan once said, "The Gospel is unleashed through radical welcome, radical forgiveness, radical healing, radical confrontation, and radical worship." This statement raises a lot of questions. Would we in the west describe the church in this way? What is it that we "unleash" upon an unbelieving and lost culture?

One of the meanings for the word "radical" is, "thorough and completely curative." To me, that speaks completeness, whether it be forgiveness, healing, worship, and above all, transformation. How thorough and how complete are our gatherings each week, be it corporately, or in small groups? Are we doing the "right things" but without His power, presence, and anointing? Are we offering sanitized versions of the world's entertainment? Are we mainly appealing to emotions, or to a person's heart, soul, and being? What happened in the early church was a radical departure from all that had been before. These were people that encountered Christ when they came together and when they were apart. They expected to encounter Him. That was a radical change from all that had been experienced in both the Jewish synagogues and the pagan temples. Is what we're inviting people into in the church today anything like first seen in the first century church?

Radical welcome means more than just a friendly smile and handshake, or remembering names. It is having such a presence of His life and love that even the hardest heart senses that His welcoming invitation is for all, even them. Radical forgiveness goes along with radical confrontation. The human race has a sin problem and each of us are born with that problem. It's our death sentence. Our flesh hates that truth and runs from it. We can't water down that message. Jesus never did, but along with the radical confrontation concerning our sin problem He offered radical forgiveness and deliverance from death into His life for all who would receive it. Total forgiveness for all that we have done and all we are. The old has passed away and the new has come. That's radical transformation coupled with radical healing. The soul is healed, along with the mind and emotions, and very often, even the body.

All of this then leads into the experience of radical worship. When people have been forgiven and they know why they've been forgiven and for how much they've been forgiven, the only response can be deep gratitude expressing itself in full hearted worship of the One who forgave them, loves them, and has made them new. This is what marks the radical church. Is it what marks ours.....yours?

May we and our fellowships be a people that the Father can "unleash" upon a desperate and dying world. Unleash with the offer of a radical and transformed way of life to all those trapped in the darkness. Fellowships that offer up cleaned up versions of what the world offers have no power to be such a church. May it be that we, and the churches we are a part of, can and do. 

Someone said that Christ didn't save us to make us safe. He saved us to make us dangerous. Dangerous to the enemy and his kingdom of death and darkness. Dangerous as well to those in His Church who have grown soft, complacent, and comfortable. Dangerous to a flesh centered faith. The kind of radical faith Buchanan speaks of terrifies both the world and the church so heavily captivated by it. May such a faith be ours. May we be so radically His that He can unleash us upon a world and church that He loves and died for.

Blessings,
Pastor O