Just as Jesus admonished the religious leaders of his day by calling out their legalism and hypocrisy, so today we have prophetic men and women who challenge the painful truth that, in many cases, the nation has discipled the church–we Christians have put on the clothes of our surrounding culture, sometimes no longer even resembling the radiant Bride of Christ.
Is it too late? How can we return to the original call God gave his Church? How can we tell when a local church has lost its identity?
Luis Sena is the contact person for the DNA local network in the Dominican Republic. He has decades of experience in wholistic community development and presently coordinates the School Development Program (Esperanza-Edify Program) at Esperanza International.
His 15-minute speech from the 2013 DNA Global Forum in Brazil will make you cringe, but in a good way. After you watch the video (it is in English and Portuguese), please share your comments on the blog. You may also wish to follow along with the written transcript or simply listen to the audio file.
[vimeo 64247789 w=500 h=281]
Excerpt: “…in general, the church in our generation has adopted the form, the model of the ‘corporation’ from the western culture. As a consequence, instead of discipling their members, in most cases, churches have Christianized cultural practices like advertising and marketing. They have done this in order to be friendlier to the public and to have a wider impact in their city as religious organizations, but not as the people of God.”
