Only Christ Crucified

Chris Moore encouraged Cris and I recently with this scripture.

“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

- 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

I have been meditating on the passage off and on since Chris Moore shared it with us yesterday. I think it was the Lord that encouraged Chris to share this passage with us, because I believe it needs to be the motivation for all our interactions with both the believers and non-believers here in Romania. We want to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified so that the faith of those we interact with might not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The primary subject that Chris Moore was discussing with us at the time was evangelism. ProDeo evangelizes differently than Cornerstone does. Cris and I are considering which differences are good, which are not good, and trying to determine how we should act. This scripture answers our question. It is not about methods, be they Cornerstone’s or ProDeo’s. What is important is that we make what we know Christ and Him crucified, and forsake the wisdom of the world. Christ crucified is what we know. It should be all we know. I want to be an idiot in all other things relating to evangelism. All I want to know is Christ crucified. This glorifies God. It takes the faith off of the strategy and puts in onto the Lord. (I’m not advocating stupidity in how we share the gospel, because how we share matters. What I am advocating is that we put our eyes on our amazing God and not on any particular strategy when we share.)

It is a temptation for Cris and I to see differences between ProDeo and CCK and think, “It would be much better if ProDeo did this like CCK does it.” Sometimes we might be right. Sometimes we are probably wrong. Cornerstone is ten times larger than ProDeo and is in a different country with different challenges. There must be differences. However, that isn’t the point.

Here’s my point. If everyone here said, “Ok, we are going to start evangelizing just like CCK, and we are going to run our campus ministry exactly like VFC,” what would happen? Maybe they see growth. Maybe their campus ministry doubles, and their evangelism becomes more fruitful. If this happened, what would the result be? ProDeo could say, “Cornerstone and VFC really have good ministry ideas, and they were really helpful. We want to be sure that we use this wisdom to make our church stronger.” I could leave and think that I have done a good job. I supplied wisdom that led to the growth of ministries, and now something like Cornerstone Church of Craiova exists. Is this success?
No! It is not success. I don’t want to encourage a church to look to ministry methods for solutions to their difficulties. I want to encourage ProDeo to have faith in the power of God and NOT in the wisdom of men, or of churches, as wise as that wisdom might be. I want to see a faith in the power of God to yield increase to this church and this campus ministry. I want to encourage ProDeo and OSCEC to have faith in the power of God. I hope they encourage me to have faith in the power of God. I pray that it is both. I want to be an encouragement to the church that the gospel (Christ crucified!) is the power of God to salvation. This is how our time here will be fruitful. We have the opportunity to be an encouragement to a healthy church to continue to bank all of their hope and trust on one truth: Christ and Him crucified.

*To the Romanians: this is a temptation of ours, not a goal. We know Cornerstone’s methods, and we believe them to be good, and they are good for a church of ~600 in America. Some of Cornerstone’s methods would not work here. The above section is a reflection of a temptation of ours if everything worked perfectly. The point is that even if proDeo became the church that did everything the way we think is best, (which is based only on our experience,) the result is not the proper one even if it did work perfectly. Our faith MUST be in God and not in methods, whether it is CCK’s, “How Good Are You” tract, or ProDeo’s “3 ‘P’s of evangelism. Both methods are good and helpful, but they cannot be what we trust. God must be who we trust. I pray that my point has been communicated effectively.*

Posted in: