Dr. Leonard Sweet, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University, spoke at Lake Junaluska during the United Methodist Camp and Retreat Ministries Gathering Feb. 1. As he addressed listeners he told them that leaders in the church, do not get to pick their moment. Rather, God makes that choice for them. They are placed where and when God’s stories and love are most needed. He admonished listeners not to spend time developing intricate missions and program plans. The mission statement comes from Christ and is simply “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matt 18:1 NRSV). “That,” he said, “is our job, and this is our time.”
“The seekers of today are driven by images and stories”, Sweet reported. “They live in the world of TGIF (Twitter, Google, Internet and Facebook). The church must take a lesson from secular advertisers who spend billions selling their products in these formats. The Church must utilize those communication methods, as well as other image and narrative driven media, to lift up Christ to the masses. Our job is to speak the word of Christ in a world that sees only images and stories…We must lift up the flag of Christ and he will draw the attention.”
Sweet used many examples and illustrations as he addressed listeners. He encouraged them to listen to and experience the imagery of the band Sugarland’s song Stand Up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARkxnRbyR1c). He also referred to the imagery of the three crosses in Karl Barth’s Deliverance to the Captives: Sermons and Prayers. He posed the question of whether we can have a church where all are considered good, or do we accept the good with the bad?
Finally, Sweet encouraged listeners to go back to the story they think they know by heart, the crucifixion story. Look at the words “My God, My God why have you forsaken me,” then read Psalm 22. Sweet believes that Christ used these familiar words not out of anguish, but to minister to those around him even as he was dying, and that, he says, is the model for how we are to go about our ministry as well.
