Face the facts of Invitation

A major part of invitational discipleship is coming to understand what our congregation really do believe, about the need to go and make disciples not pretending – often with them – that they believe what they don’t believe at all. In a setting where a social premium has been placed upon believing certain things for the sake of solidarity, we must face the fact that our congregational members can honestly profess to believe what the do not believe. As Dallas Willard says in the Divine Conspiracy is The fact that our congregational members “can honestly profess to believe what they do not believe.” They may do this for so long that even they no longer know that they do not believe what they profess. But their invitational actions will, of course, be in terms of what they actually believe. This will be so even though they do not recognize it, and they will lose themselves in bewilderment about the weakness of their faith. Our system is perfectly designed to produce the result you are getting. We need to let our minds dwell on it.