The flourishing church
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more popular word in evangelical circles today than flourishing. But are the churches described that way avoiding complexity?
Trust me on this—they couldn't have chosen a busier intersection, shopping malls all around, a left turn lane in triplicate coming from the exit ramp on the freeway. It was four in the afternoon, relatively mild for winter, and right there on the busiest street corner in town they set up a pulpit.
Not a pulpit, but they waved big, marching-order posters. One said "Jesus Saves" in heavy block print, then something else beneath I couldn't read: I had to turn the corner. It was printed, not hand-lettered. He held it in one hand, wielded the Bible in the other, waved it at the cars. All right, I'll say it, waved it like a madman, waking up shoppers to the truth of the gospel.
The other man authored his own sign, boldly hand-lettered: "He who has not believed will be damned," it said, taking no prisoners.
