The Jesus Way

I was just given a book to read called the way of Jesus by Eugene H. Peterson. It comes out of the starting blocks swinging at the modern current Madison avenue techniques churches employ to do church. He focuses on, "The Jesus way is wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life." (p4) So much of the church today is focused on the truth of Jesus yet when it comes to the way of Jesus there is a total disconnect and thus we have churches without the life of Jesus even though they teach the truth but they lack the way. Corporate ideology in the church quenches the way and Mr. Peterson says it is wrong in his view.


Here is a long quote from pages 6-7
"The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. We Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting more, requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable.
It didn't take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them, satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel in consumer terms; entertainment, satisfaction, excitement, adventure, problem solving, whatever. This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus' salvation. This is not the way in which we become less and Jesus becomes more....We can't gather a God-fearing, God-worshiping congregation by cultivating a consumer pleasing, commodity-oriented congregation...The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life."

In planting a church in Japan clearly the Japanese are on the heals of America in consumerism. I might argue they are slightly ahead. It would be easy to give them a consumerism church and there are big works in progress with flash and lights and lots of pizazz. But they are lacking the simplicity of just a simple walk with Jesus. We walk with him in the good times and the bad, in the happy and the sad, we walk with Jesus when he blesses and when he disciplines. We are married to Jesus and need to become intimate with him on our own. We need to be still and know that he is God. To jump in a congregation for an hour singing praise songs to Jesus can be a exhilarating experience but you haven't learned the Jesus life.

The Japanese need love and grace. They have so many laws and restrictions and there is so much duality of persons that you can't trust anyone. The Japanese just need a simple loving relationship with Jesus. Not another God with millions of rules in order to obtain blessings. But a God of Love that blesses because that is his character and nature.

I have not but read the introduction and begun the first chapter so when I finish I will give a more complete report.