Neil MacMillan, ‘Traditional or Experimental' (26 Apr 2012)

Traditional or Experimental
Lecture given at the European Conference of the ICRC
Kiev, April 26, 2012
Neil MacMillan

Marginalisation of the church in Western countries has led to a period of critical self-examination as Christian leaders and academics seek to discern where the church has failed and how those failures can be overcome. The fundamental conclusion arrived at has been to acknowledge that the church has not kept pace with the shift to a post Christian culture. Many of our structures and much of our communication are now a hindrance to fruitful gospel witness. This has led to a close re-examination of many aspects of the local church and its relationship to both the culture and wider ecclesiastical institutions.

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Wim Verboon, ‘Rational or Practical: Communication of the Gospel Today’ (25 Apr 2012)

Rational or practical: Communication of the Gospel today
Lecture given at the European Conference of the ICRC
Kiev, April 25, 2012
Wim Verboom

A fluid culture

In Western Europe and certainly in the Netherlands we live in a culture whereby most people do not have a clue of what it is to live with the Lord, the God and Father of Jesus Chris, our Savior. The Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman rightly typifies our culture as a fluid one. The most important characteristic of this culture is that it is unceasingly in motion and continually changing direction. Unchangeable matters do not fit such a culture. That certainly explains the ill fit of what God has revealed in the Bible as His Word and what constitutes His unchanging truth. For contemporary people, truth is not necessarily true even though I do not experience it as true (objective truth). But to them, truth is something that is true because they experience it as true (subjective truth). Only this belief gives modern individuals meaning and satisfaction. Therefore is the belief in an eternal God not necessary. It is much more an obstacle.

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Jos Colijn, ‘Marginal and Missional’ (24 Apr 2012)

Marginal and Missional
Lecture given at the European Conference of the ICRC
Kiev, April 24, 2012
Jos Colijn

From marginal to mainstream to marginal

The words 'marginal' and 'mainstream' refer to the position of the church of Christ and the Christian in the world. The position of the early Christian church was marginal. First having been seen as a Jewish sect, it proceeded to establish its own identity in the often hostile Roman environment. Christianity was an illegal religion, looked upon with disdain. The Christians were seen as a danger to the unity and prosperity of the empire and therefore suffered discrimination. Sometimes directly persecuted, yet always living in uncertainty and without freedom to fully live the faith, Christians truly experienced that they were strangers, travelers passing by on their way to real Fatherland.

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