Session #4, Discerning the Gospel

*According to Watson, what is the recovered gospel?


*Hall presents 4 worldly quests, how do these issues relate to the gospel, our mission, and our congregation?


*Describe West's thesis statement and expansion of it in his article.


*Critique Brownson's missional hermeneutic. How does his model correspond with your current hermeneutical grid?


*Dyrness provides a missilogical theology to the fray, how would you apply his vernacular approach to your ministry context?


*Satari begins to unravel the tangled gospel. What are the tangles, barriers, and distortions that your cultural context has done to the gospel? (This is getting down to the bottom line of the course as we lay the foundation with this textbook.) Please utilize the Scriptures to answer this question. I am presently teaching a Small Group Bible Study on Colossians at the church plant satelite that we attend. My goal is utilize this study to help us rediscover the gospel. It is interesting to observe each year we are becoming more like the "mother church" we left. I wonder if we will be back to where we started in 7.5 years, which is my thesis of the NA church planting enterprise. So instead of going back to the future, we revitalize and go back to the past. Church planting is the most effective missional activity in NA, and yet it requires constant pruning back to the "vine"!