The Gospel as a Quick Fix
by Amanda Christopher
If you have spent much time at New City, you’ve heard us talk about gospel fluency. What we mean by that is seeing all of life through the lens of the gospel, and speaking the truths of the gospel into every part of our lives. We don’t believe the gospel is just for salvation; we believe it is for all of life! We don’t believe it’s just good news for eternity; we believe it is good news for the here and now. The gospel really changes everything.
To help us learn to be more gospel fluent in real life, we use these four questions and an exercise called Fruit to Root. Maybe you’ve already seen this blog post that talks about this process of identifying the root of our sins and applying the gospel to our misbeliefs. If not, hop over and read it when you’re done here. For now, here are the questions:
Who is God? What does my current experience or emotion say I am believing about God?
Who am I? What does my current experience or emotion say I am believing about myself?
What has God done? How is the gospel good news for what I am experiencing right now?
How should I live? How do I live in light of the truths of the gospel?
The fruit to root exercise is a really valuable tool to help guide conversations, with others or ourselves. (Yes, talk to yourself about these things!)
Sometimes though, I’m afraid we have treated it as a formulaic quick fix for bad feelings. This is not at all the heart behind gospel fluency.
Here’s an example. Years ago, I was about to have to do a really hard thing — give up my 8-month-old foster baby who had been mine in my heart since he was 3 days old. We were a foster family, ready to adopt, and a biological family member came forward to adopt him. I was sharing my feelings of sadness and grief with someone, and they asked me, “What are you believing about God right now?”
Now, I don’t remember who it was. I was talking to a lot of people about the situation back then, over seven years ago. I am sure this person loved me and was genuinely trying to help. But at that moment, I wasn’t given space to feel what I was feeling. I felt like this person just wanted to fix me. The question felt like an accusation. Even if there was sin at the root of what I was experiencing, and I don’t believe there was, in that moment, I needed care and understanding. Either way, I was still going to have to do a really hard thing. I was still going to have to drive this baby to a stranger’s house and leave him. The situation wasn’t going to be fixed.
This is what I mean when I say we sometimes treat these questions as a problem-solving mechanism to fix a bad feeling, like people are robots and if we just type in the right code, we will all function properly. But instead of anything being fixed, I’m afraid we unintentionally create an environment where people believe they can’t be honest about their struggles. We unintentionally come across as harsh or uncaring.
If we skip the connection part, where we listen and show care when someone has opened up to us, we miss the chance to build trust and to show that person he/she is seen and understood. Or if the assumed outcome of answering those questions is that the bad feeling goes away at the end, what if he/she is still struggling? Maybe they walk away from the conversation feeling even more broken than before.
So what do we do? How can we guard against treating gospel fluency as a quick fix to hard things? The simple answer is slow down. Take time to listen. Show the same care you’d like to be shown. Read the gospels and pay attention to the way Jesus interacted with the broken and hurting. He didn’t rush. Don’t assume one conversation will be all it takes. Gospel fluency should happen in relationship.
But if you want to grow more in this, we will have a follow-up blog coming soon elaborating on how we can use the tools of gospel fluency in ways that show love and compassion and gently correct and point people back to Jesus and the hope we have in the gospel. Stay tuned.