Introduction and The Myth of the Christian Layman

Introduction to The Dark Horse Motel

Today was our "inaugural" recording of our podcast, and so it occurs to us that we should post something on the blog to summarize what we talked about and provide a jumping off point for the blog as well as the podcast.  I drew the short straw am privileged to be the one to bring this post to the public hopefully for your edification.

Some of the questions answered in this podcast:

• What is 'The Dark Horse Motel'?
• Introduction of the hosts.
• Who is our target audience?
• What is the purpose of our ministry?
• What gets Jeff out of bed in the morning?  (the rest of us too)

The Myth of the Christian Layman

 The main topic we discussed today was directly related to what we think is our larger mission and calling, and that is 'the normal Christian'.   We have different perspectives on several topics, but we agree that we see a need for information for the 'normal Christian' - the people who make up the larger body of any given church - those who may have never been to seminary or Bible college, have day-jobs, families, hobbies, and friends that bring us often and squarely into contact with the World.  It's not that we don't think some people 'know this stuff', we'd like to think anyone and everyone can benefit from our topics in some way, but we know there are some people who like to talk about things like 'modalism' or 'the hypostatic union' or 'eschatology', and it's our hope that we can help those who don't understand those terms understand why they're such a big deal to those who do. We think the motivations and concerns that spur some people to dive deeply into some of these topics are at their core simple truths that can be used by any of us in plain old everyday life.

We want to explore how to really pursue a life that is pleasing to God in the midst of all the things we have in our daily lives.   So many of the resources we see out there speak to a more 'theologically-immersed' audience, and we want to avoid that.  We think that one of the issues with many people in churches is that they feel this division between themselves and 'the professionals'.   In truth, it's easy to go to church week-in, week-out and fall into the trap of thinking that 'teaching' or 'ministry' or 'missions' or 'evangelism' or <insert God's commandment here> is 'the pastor's job' when in truth it's all of our jobs, to different degrees.

So when I write 'the myth of the Christian Layman' that's what I mean - that we are all ministers, we are all evangelists. That's not to say that some are not gifted with some strengths that others are not, but that if we are growing to be more like Jesus, we're going to love more and more and serve more and more the object of Jesus' love - that is The Church. 

So, this effort is our little attempt to reach out to those of you who are like us - not necessarily the most intellectual, not the most educated, but all of us being gradually reformed by God's grace.  So please join us as we take this journey together. We want your feedback, your prayers, your encouragement, and your ideas.  We hope what we offer will be profitable to you  and above all, bring glory to the name of Christ.