Comparisons are inevitable. Southern preachers will eventually come face to face with Billy Graham. A generation or two fawn over the "simple gospel" presented in stadium after stadium. I confess to wondering why someone already given to follow Jesus, become a Christian, wants a steady diet of preaching found at a Billy Graham Crusade. Seems to me the need to move from one place to another must be more than moving from judgment to mercy.
Roxburgh and Romanuk describe the inauspicious places from which the activity of God comes. (Missional Leader, p.21) Since many have pronounced the end of the church it is refreshing to see these two connect the future activity of God coming from the most "God forsaken places"; and that from the people of God – even the church.
most influential expression of the human drive for control…A reduced gospel trivializes God as it makes God into a manageable deity.
Moving from one place to another becomes difficult when our understanding of the Gospel is limited to forgiveness of sins. We care little about the things God cares about. We care little about the world God cares about. In fact, we cannot see the world the way God sees the world because we are so consumed with the way we see the world. Our need for preaching then becomes therapeutic. We cannot change the world and do not believe God will. We need an avenue to cope with the difficult. Hearing repeatedly we made the right choice at a point in time keeps us insulated from trouble in the world and joining God in the mission in the world to which he sent the church.
May the activity of God rise from forsaken places to those with ears to hear the Gospel of God that sets the world to rights, grants forgiveness to people and forms them in mercy to live in the Kingdom realities until the return of the King.