I’ve told this story a couple of times in recent months: I wanted to relate it here to see how others remember it. It was while I was at Moody (MBI): I think it was Missions Conference one of the yeas I was there, but I don’t remember the context. In my mind it happened in Torrey-Grey Auditiorium; my impression was that it was in one of the last chapels of the week for the event. We had all been attending the various sessions and being taught by some of the best missions minded theologians at the time. We were, in fact, full to bursting with newfound knowledge. And at this last chapel the speaker got up: as students we were all tired and looking forward to the weekend. The speaker got up, made a small preamble referring to the information we had been receiving over the previous week: and then drew a simple conclusion. “Go do it.” And he was done. It was shortest chapel of my days.
Nowadays this doesn’t sound that remarkable, at least in one respect. We’ve lived with the Nike branded, “Just do it” for decades now. But it’s perhaps a little more surprising when you remember that the Nike campaign was launched in 1988: the year I was married to Kim, a year after I graduated from MBI. So this happened well before the campaign started, perhaps even before it was conceived.
I truly believe that we as members of the church are called to to bring God’s news to the world: and to do so in ways that are relevant, appealing, diverse, sensitive and culturally entwined. Times like this, I think we reflected deeper into where the world was going, without even recognizing it ourselves, but managed to strike a chord in our humanity. We need to work with our culture, rather than being molded by it.
The Qristian's Corner 