30 min
Episode 6: Parkway Yeah, That's My Dad
-
- Documentary
Episode 6: Parkway
Every true and genuine Christian ever loves not only Christ, but His church.
This should be obvious, right? When Christ saves us, He doesn’t save us by ourselves for ourselves.
He saves us into a family, the historical and global community of the saints. By grace, we become members of Christ’s body, not only dependent upon Him as our head, but intimately and necessarily connected to one another.
This means that the Christian life is a “we” endeavor. You can’t live this thing out listening to your favorite preacher on your airpods while you walk the track. It's gotta be lived out in real-life, flesh-and-blood, face-to-face community.
And so gospel-centered Christians always love their local church. They given themselves to knowing and being known by the people, submitting to the pastors, benefiting from the means of grace, and loving whoever Christ brings to them.
Nothing could be more healing than that.
And yet church can also be a place where harm is done.
Of course, no church is ever going to be perfect. How can it be when it is filled with and led by sinners? So we should all have really patient, understanding hearts and really thick, humble skin when it comes to being a part of a church.
But sometimes a church moves from spiritually imperfect to spiritually abusive. Its shepherds prove to be hirelings who are out for the advancement of themselves and their brands and their self actualizations at the expense of the people
When that happens, inevitably, the people get hurt.
My dad’s experience of throwing himself fully into the life and mission of our church in Revere in the 80s was the ultimate mixed bag of church life: so much gospel healing in him and so much healing though him in others, but also some hurt.
Episode 6: Parkway
Every true and genuine Christian ever loves not only Christ, but His church.
This should be obvious, right? When Christ saves us, He doesn’t save us by ourselves for ourselves.
He saves us into a family, the historical and global community of the saints. By grace, we become members of Christ’s body, not only dependent upon Him as our head, but intimately and necessarily connected to one another.
This means that the Christian life is a “we” endeavor. You can’t live this thing out listening to your favorite preacher on your airpods while you walk the track. It's gotta be lived out in real-life, flesh-and-blood, face-to-face community.
And so gospel-centered Christians always love their local church. They given themselves to knowing and being known by the people, submitting to the pastors, benefiting from the means of grace, and loving whoever Christ brings to them.
Nothing could be more healing than that.
And yet church can also be a place where harm is done.
Of course, no church is ever going to be perfect. How can it be when it is filled with and led by sinners? So we should all have really patient, understanding hearts and really thick, humble skin when it comes to being a part of a church.
But sometimes a church moves from spiritually imperfect to spiritually abusive. Its shepherds prove to be hirelings who are out for the advancement of themselves and their brands and their self actualizations at the expense of the people
When that happens, inevitably, the people get hurt.
My dad’s experience of throwing himself fully into the life and mission of our church in Revere in the 80s was the ultimate mixed bag of church life: so much gospel healing in him and so much healing though him in others, but also some hurt.
30 min