Winning the World

Session 4 Sanctifying the Present by Embodying the Past, Preparing for the Future

The Role of Tradition in Urban Church Planting Movements

What Does It Really Mean to Be Saved and to Be Growing? A single person is sitting at home in front of the TV; a Christian broadcast is on, a sermon is preached, an invitation is given, and the person responds by “accepting Christ.” But the only “church” the person attends is by way of the TV, with no connection to a local body of believers. The question: Is this person saved? I would answer: Only God knows: but such salvation lies totally outside the New Testament frame of reference. One of the sure members of the modern world’s “trinity,” along with relativism and secularism, is individualism. Recapturing the biblical sense of the significance of the individual, but revising it to fit a nonbiblical, naturalistic world view, the Enlightenment led the modern Western world into a totally individualistic understanding of life, which has never been more prevalent than it is today. The individual is the be-all and end-all of everything; subservience of individual rights to the common good has become the new “heresy to be rejected at all costs. The individual is god; narcissistic self-interest and self-centeredness is the chief end of life. Unfortunately, in recognizing the biblical emphasis on the significance of the individual, North American Christianity in particular has also tended to buy into our cultural version of this emphasis. So much is this so that any hint of a return to the biblical emphasis on the people of God as a community of believers is often seen as a threat to our significance as individuals. Paul’s view is considerably different.

~ Gordon D. Fee. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996. pp. 64-65.

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I. The View of Tradition from Barna, Garrison, Kreider, and Mull

2 Thess. 2.15 (ESV) So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

Tradition = The passing down of elements of a community or culture from generation to generation, especially its basic teachings and time-honored practices, communicated both formally and informally through words, precedents, customs, and rituals.

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