Total Church - Chapter 4 Quotes

"This means it is never enough to address people’s felt needs. Felt needs can be a good point to start because the gospel addresses the human condition in all its complexity. But people do not as a rule express God’s judgment as a felt need. People are blind to their true plight. They do not see their greatest need, which is to be reconciled to God through the gospel. If we do not keep people’s eternal plight in mind, then immediate needs will force their way to the top of our agenda, and we will betray the gospel and the people we profess to love. The most loving thing we can do for the poor is to proclaim the good news of eternal salvation through Christ. It is by no means the only loving thing we can do for them, but it is the most loving thing we can do. It would be a crime of monumental proportions knowingly to withhold such good news."

"The big question is, why is the church in the West failing to reach the poor and marginalized in our society? If our churches do not reflect the reality Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1, then we have to ask ourselves, concerning the message we have proclaimed, the way we have proclaimed it, the church cultures we have created, the expectation we have of church members, whether in some or all of these ways we have been untrue to the message of the cross. We have left room for boasting. Instead of nullifying status, intellect, and wealth, we have valued these things too highly and so nullified the message of “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Conservative Christians are right to oppose any downgrade in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.6 But we must examine our-selves to see whether we too are robbing the cross of its power."

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church, p. 78 and 84