Justin Buzzard has a good, brief interview here with Don Carson about gospel-centeredness. Dr. Carson explains what it means to lead a gospel-centered life, explains why he’s encouraged by the twentysomething generation in the American church, and offers counsel for those wanting to recover the gospel in unchurched areas.
Below is the final question (on recommended resources on gospel-centeredness). I’ve taken the liberty of adding a few links:
What are a few key resources you recommend to your average church member who wants to better understand how the gospel is meant to drive the entirety of the Christian life?
Once again, the first step is to understand the gospel, for in doing so, its ties to all of life become luminous. Many of the sermons on thegospelcoalition.org treat such matters. At the risk of calling attention to individuals:
(1) Not a few of the sermons of Tom Nelson (on the site) talk about how the believer serves God in the normal responsibilities and cycles of work. [JT note: check out Nelson’s sermon series, The Curse of the Cubicle.]
(2) Many of Tim Keller’s sermons do the same, with a greater emphasis on working in the arts, journalism, music, and so forth.
(3) For a challenge across the field, read John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life.
(4) To think through faithfulness in gospel proclamation and doing “deeds of mercy,” begin, perhaps, with a ten-page essay by Tim Keller in Themelios 33/3. . . . .
(5) For those especially interested in Christianity and the arts, see the lovely 64-page booklet by Phil Ryken, Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts (2006).
(6) For those interested in more global/political/theological analysis, try my Christ and Culture Revisited.
(7) Similarly, it is worth reading Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.
(8) There are some workshops that were offered at both the 2007 and the 2009 Coalition conference that bear on these matters, and they are available as acoustic downloads. Some of them are quite moving.
This is but the merest introduction. What you must not do, however, is become so interested in questions about how the gospel should drive our entire life and impact every dimension of life that one begins to neglect the study of the Bible itself, and remove one’s focus from Jesus, his cross and resurrection, his gospel.
