February 8 1999

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Max Lucado's books have sold over 11 million copies,
and he consistently makes Christianity Today's list of readers' favorite Christian writers. His list of homespun bestsellers makes it easy to overlook the fact that, first and foremost, he is pastor of Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas. A former prodigal who regularly used to split a case of beer with a friend ("that's two six-packs apiece"), he one day found himself sitting in a pickup truck in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot murmuring, "There's got to be more than this." That was the beginning of a turnaround that fueled his passion for the gospel of grace, a theme in his many books.

CT associate editor Wendy Murray Zoba caught up with Lucado to find out what he is thinking about the church today.

How would you assess the state of the evangelical movement at the end of the twentieth century?
We're struggling to deal with some tough questions. We don't know quite how to respond to some hard social questions, like abortion. We don't know whether to be militant against a homosexual or work side by side with homosexuals. We don't know if it helps to boycott this need or if we should pray for this need. We have identified the enemy, but we don't know how to respond.

How do we resolve this dilemma? That's why I'm in San Antonio and why I preach. The culture we face is no more deviant than the culture Jesus faced. He lived in a society that denigrated women, and from what I understand, their treatment of the less fortunate was just horrible. But I don't see Jesus being politically active. My conviction is to lead one congregation in one sizable city to the point where we lead such admirable, respectable, and contagious lives that we may never even verbalize that ...