A few days ago, I cited from D.A. Carson’s work, The Gagging of God, where looking up the quote reminded me of how practical Carson was in the vast 
majority of his books. One chapter in particular from this mammoth monograph, “On Heralding the Gospel in a Pluralistic Culture,” was incredibly helpful as I thought about philosophy of ministry in the context of church planting. After arguing for heralding the historic gospel and thinking carefully about living that out, Carson lists some practical points on how to tie gospel living to gospel preaching. I think they are worth a look. I will post six of them today and the rest tomorrow.
1. The primary reason why people in our churches do not invite more of their friends to come to church is that they are embarrassed by what goes on there. If such embarrassment is triggered by anything other than the offense of the cross, it is the pastor’s fault [OUCH!!!].
2. Many Christians, not least Christian preachers, simply do not know any out-and-out pagans. It is time they did. They should rearrange priorities and befriend some of them.
3. Those committed to seeker services ought to ask themselves constantly if commendable zeal for the lost does not sometimes lead them into a lamentable pragmatism that unwittingly displaces worship by aesthetics, transforms biblical undertainding of conversion into the shallowest kinds of decisionism with all the real life-transforming content introduced after “conversion” in various small-group therapy sessions, and reduces God to the status of diving genie: he helps me when I need him. Those committed to traditional services may be safe enough in conservative enclaves in the country, but if they exist in a social context where virutally everything they do in corporate meetings is utterly alien to men and women all around them, they must ask what pains they ought to take to explain what they are doing to outsiders, and to forego their own comfort zones for the sake of communicating the gospel.
4. There are many useful alternatives to the antithesis, seeker service or traditional service. Many churches use “guest services” to which believers are espeically encouraged to bring unconverted guests. Those services include singing, prayers, preaching – but every element is carefully and wisely explained. . . . As we have seen, the value in preserving the normal patterns of corporate worship, even while gently explaining them, is that outsiders are introduced to the church as a worshiping community and feel the power of corporate reverence.
5. Develop evangelistic Bible studies for complete outsiders.
6. Some churches in big cities develop brief and pungent noon-hour services for business people, often combined with an inexpensive lunch.
I am not sure how to think about point #1. Point #2 is very convicting. Do you have any points to add?
