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 PrintableVersion Creating a prodigal-friendly churchOpen doors?CREATING A PRODIGAL FRIENDLY CHURCH Nowadays, it seems, no church can survive without at least one adjective! Depending on which book we read or conference we attend, we must be ‘missional’, ‘seeker-friendly’, ‘provocative’, ‘mission-shaped’, ‘purpose-driven’, ‘emerging’, or (as here) ‘prodigal-friendly’. Perhaps all the books could be sub-titled, ‘Look what happened to my church!’ For the adjectives turn a testimony into a blueprint. No harm in that! - we can always learn from God’s wonderful works. But we need to remember that the church of Jesus is a great mystery, with glorious features and amazing complexities. Those adjectives are mostly stressing one aspect of the church’s Spirit-sustained life. Jeff Lucas’ book is full of stories stressing that the church exists for the fallen and the outcast. Her door should be open to the most shocking Ð indeed, she is always running out to bring such people in. Lucas uses the parable of the Prodigal to expound what a church should be, and what it should not be Ð namely a church dominated by ‘elder brothers’: ‘The prodigal-friendly church is a messy celebration of the Father’s love, not a cheap denial of the severity of sin. But the elder brother didn’t see that Ð he was too busy reacting, huffing, and puffing, and most likely wanting to blow the house down.’ Like the parable, the book does not touch on how God saves prodigals. So it lacks any clear reference to Christ’s atoning death, and how this brings conviction, repentance and joyful assurance. That would help to resolve the tension between the church as a community that is open to all and the church as a community of people who have discovered the forgiveness of sins and are living in holy obedience to God’s wonderful law. Uncomfortable but worthwhile reading for most of us, I guess. John Nicholls,
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