Tim Keller on Contextualization

The other day I came across Tim Keller's book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, which features three chapters on contextualization.  Chapter 10 is called "Active Contextualization," and is essentially a printed version of Keller's lecture that I posted about here.   I haven't read the rest of the book, so I can't comment on the other two chapters about contextualization, but Chapter 10 is definitely worth a read.  In it Keller discusses how to practically approach the process of contextualizing the Gospel in any society, whether one's own birth culture, another society, or even a different generation.  Although Keller's ministry context is Manhattan, the points that he makes in this chapter could be applied to any place or culture, western or nonwestern.

Sorry for the delay...

I haven't been very a very productive blogger for the last couple of weeks!  Unfortunately, I've had to postpone a couple of potential topics for various reasons, which has left me empty-handed for today's post.  Not to mention that I've had spring fever since my last post and have been spending a lot of time working on the shade garden!  I will try to redouble my efforts in the coming week and hopefully generate a new post in about a week.

In the meantime, here's a great audio link from the Anglican1000 website that was sent to me by my friend Marcia.  It's a lecture by Tim Keller on contextualization, where he discusses why contextualization (of preaching, in his case) is necessary in expressing the Gospel and reaching those who need to hear it.  Although he doesn't deal specifically with the arts, what he discusses would apply to them also.  So I hope you will enjoy listening to it while I'm working on another post!

Here's the link: http://c808066.r66.cf2.rackcdn.com/04_2011_A1K_Keller_P3.mp3
To download the mp3, right-click on the player itself and select "Save video as...".

You can also access the lecture through iTunes here (Lecture #12).