by Mike Chong Perkinson
We live in the midst of a post-modern world that has become suspicious with the propositional world of truth and facts. The declarations of science have only made the average individual more apprehensive about what can be known and who can know it. Truth has become personal, “what is true for you is not necessarily for me”; largely due to a world of overstatements that were not backed up by reality. Our world is less interested in whether or not something is factually true, but rather if something is real. This does not deny the interplay of truth with facts, but speaks to the “something more” that lies deep within the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
The Western Church (referred to as WC) has only facilitated this demise as we have bought into a secular worldview that has taught the sequence of fact, faith and feeling. In essence, feelings don’t matter and can’t be trusted. We are basically Vulcans (like Spock on Star Trek -Vulcans are individuals that have removed all emotion because of the near extinction of the Vulcan society due to emotions). We live in a cerebral world of propositions and systems of thought that guide our daily lives. The world is then not about love, righteousness or beauty, but about being right, clear and logical. The emphasis is on supporting, building and nurturing the proposition and the operating system and not on nurturing human beings (Philippians 1:25) and our operating system, the heart.
As a result the WC has operated in a paradigm that focuses more on the “how” than it does the ultimate destination or the “why”. It would be like two families arguing over which vehicle to take on a trip. One family wants to take the RV and the other wants to take the SUV. In their argument they lose sight of the purpose and destination and focus only on the reasons their vehicle of choice is superior and more necessary. The point of the trip, family fun and togetherness is lost in the heated exchange and both families will not budge.
RV – Argument for: More room, can rest better and relax while we drive, can interact better as families.
SUV – Argument for: Roomy enough, better gas mileage, easier to drive, less likely to get into an accident, easier to park.
The families can’t agree on the mode of transportation, the “how” and so by taking separate vehicles are no longer able to vacation together. How unfortunate. How silly. How church-like. It is so easy as the church to get sidetracked and spend more time disagreeing over the “how” rather than focusing on the direction (a “how” the Bible does not address). You know - when your political party determines your theology, when you base your Biblical views more on the Constitution than Scripture, when you turned Christianity into creeds and doctrines at the expense of a relationship with God, when love becomes a tool to evangelize instead of a way of life, when our denominational preference supersedes Scripture; when this happens we become "religianity" rather than being simple followers of Christ.
The WC gets lost in its creedal wars, fighting with a heart that is far from the heart of love that Jesus told us would define as His disciples.
The WC has then created a process where we…
Educate to Principle > Equip to Principle > Evangelize because of principle for the principle.
The WC seeks to admonish and address issues in life so that people will adhere to the principles and systems that have created and need to be supported. The contention of many in the WC is to protect and to preserve their system or way of thinking more than preserve and nurture others in the love, grace and freedom of Christ.
The OC (Organic Church)
On the other hand, the OC (Organic means life on life) seeks to help facilitate a relationship with the Person of Christ by incarnating His presence (Gift of Presence) and living in the reality of the “Irreducible Core” (loving God, loving others as you love yourself and as you live life, make disciples). Systems are utilized in the OC as well. However the systems are not served but serve the life that is forming. These systems are adaptable and flexible and only exist to support and release life - not constrain it.
The OC process then would look something like…
Encounter a Person > Equip to and for life > Edify other persons
The WC is about strict adherence and behaviors while the OC is about 3 relationships (God, self and others). More simply, love affirms which frees people to become the person God intended them to be (Ephesians 2:10, NLT “masterpiece”) – releases us to have a relationship with a person not a proposition. Just a side note, propositions are much easier to control – a person, particularly Christ, is not.
All of that to say, forgiveness leads to freedom and freedom leads to fruitfulness. Understanding the proposition of forgiveness is vital but experiencing it in relationship with the living God of the universe is another matter. Love frees and is the basis of the new revolution.
If you have found yourself weeping over this generation, interceding on behalf of lost people, praying that God would forgive them for they know not what they do, finding ways to facilitate reconciliation in all matters of life, and growing in the Fruit of the Spirit; then you are being prepared for what is to come.
The closing two verses of the Book of Acts help us understand what this all means. Paul had been living in house arrest for 2 years, paying his own expenses, as well as having a soldier guard him (Acts 28:16). In spite of the obstacles, Luke closes the account with these powerful words, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance”. When we live for ourselves there are always hindrances. When we live for Christ, there are only opportunities.
The revolution is full of opportunities. May God’s people submit to the King, be overtaken by love, and find the world ready and primed to receive our Messiah! To the resolved and broken, the time is now. The revolution has begun!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
De-coupling From Culture, Engaging People
by Tom Johnston
Since Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, followed and reinforced by Theodosius I and his Code in 380 AD which established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Christian faith has held special cultural privilege in Western society. Indeed, as the West developed, the Church has played a foundational role in the formation of its civilization. The Church has been the center pole of that society, and consequently the American nation as well. Here in New England where I live, during the Colonial Era, before a village or town could receive a charter from the King, a church building HAD to be constructed. Mr. Jefferson’s letter regarding his thoughts on the separation of Church and state had not yet been penned – the Church was seen to be essential to the community, the society, the culture. (Kings ruled by Divine Right – and none wanted to offend God!) Christendom, the aligning of Church and State, became the dominant cultural driver in Western societies. How far we have moved from that reality, with the secularism that came with Modernity replacing the influence of the Church. This has been both good and bad. Bad in the sense of a general decline in those professing Christ as a percentage of the population, bad in the sense that the positive influence of the Church in ethics (politics, business, science) has declined as well. But perhaps it is good as well. Perhaps it is an opportunity.
Today the Church in the West struggles to find its place in the very civilization it helped to found. Europe has become profoundly post-Christian, some even say pagan. Years of culture wars in the United States has not gained any purchase in the downhill slide of faith in our country. By way of example, the recent American Religious Identification Survey indicates 29% of the people living in my state (New Hampshire) have no religious identity. Not Christian, not Jewish, not Muslim, not Buddhist - not anything. This is up 20% in the past 18 years. Yet the Church of Jesus Christ continues to grow everywhere in the world outside the West. The Church of the West is in trouble, the Church of the Bible is not.
In response, many pastors and Christian leaders are on a quest for an elusive thing – cultural relevance. Many see such relevance as the key to communicating the Gospel effectively to generations which have yet to be truly impacted by its message. And while we would applaud their missional concern and their desire to once again impact the society for Christ, we are not sure that cultural relevance is what we should be aiming for. An honest appraisal of the Gospel as compared to some of our Western cultural norms shows some dramatic divergence. For the Christian disciple, the way up is down, the way to gain your life is to lose it, the way to lead is to serve. Seems a little different than the current version of the American Dream, as we see a combination of personal and corporate greed wreck the economy as companies sold things to people who were lusting for what they could not afford. Not exactly Matthew 6:33.
No, Christianity is counter-cultural to the West, as the Gospel speaks prophetically against much of the self-absorbed nature of our society. It is counter-intuitive, as it does not support the current morals and values of the West, seemingly wrong to those steeped in the materialistic, hedonistic lifestyle at the core of our civilization. To make the point simply, the recent “economic crisis” happened in part because people stopped buying stuff. Times got tough, people got smart, savings went up, personal debt went down (first time since WWII) – and this was bad for the economy. So the government had to spend for us, and for our kids and grandkids. But that’s another article.
So, what then about culture? The Church exists within culture, incarnates within culture and communicates the Gospel within culture. A proper “cultural exegesis” is required for a local church to effectively minister in any given environment. So, culture cannot be escaped, but the issue is not cultural relevance, because the Gospel is not relevant to culture. It’s relevant to people.
For 2000 years, in many different parts of the world, in many different cultures, the Gospel of the Kingdom and its message of salvation have impacted billions of people – and changed and shaped cultures – through the people who have been transformed by Christ. The individuals, couples and families who have entered into the new birth and then been used by God to bring change to the culture. They have been so affected because the Gospel speaks to the core human needs of significance, transcendence and belonging. The needs of people. People’s hearts must change before they can change their culture. In effect, true Christianity is a counter-cultural, revolutionary in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into the lives and affairs of men. The Kingdom advances one heart at a time. The hearts of people. This spiritual revolution initiated by Christ is not propagated by institutions on organizations – but by His people. It is shared person to person, life to life. It is an organic reality that transcends culture. In fact, every culture at some point must bow its knee to Jesus. We don’t need to dominate culture nor morph ourselves to mate with it – we need to be salt and light within it, ministering the love and life of Jesus to people.
Perhaps it is that God in His sovereign plan is allowing the Church in the West to lose its cultural influence so as to de-couple us from it, so that we can minister to the people within it. We could leave the Culture War behind (we lost anyway) and engage in a war of love and service to people. No longer being the center pole of Western civilization, we can’t expect people to come to us, we must go to them, going with a heart of love embodied in sharing God’s truth, compassion and justice.
So, abandon your quest to hit the moving target of cultural relevance, and go find people to love on, in Jesus name. When He transforms enough of us, He can transform our society. Go engage some people.
Since Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, followed and reinforced by Theodosius I and his Code in 380 AD which established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Christian faith has held special cultural privilege in Western society. Indeed, as the West developed, the Church has played a foundational role in the formation of its civilization. The Church has been the center pole of that society, and consequently the American nation as well. Here in New England where I live, during the Colonial Era, before a village or town could receive a charter from the King, a church building HAD to be constructed. Mr. Jefferson’s letter regarding his thoughts on the separation of Church and state had not yet been penned – the Church was seen to be essential to the community, the society, the culture. (Kings ruled by Divine Right – and none wanted to offend God!) Christendom, the aligning of Church and State, became the dominant cultural driver in Western societies. How far we have moved from that reality, with the secularism that came with Modernity replacing the influence of the Church. This has been both good and bad. Bad in the sense of a general decline in those professing Christ as a percentage of the population, bad in the sense that the positive influence of the Church in ethics (politics, business, science) has declined as well. But perhaps it is good as well. Perhaps it is an opportunity.
Today the Church in the West struggles to find its place in the very civilization it helped to found. Europe has become profoundly post-Christian, some even say pagan. Years of culture wars in the United States has not gained any purchase in the downhill slide of faith in our country. By way of example, the recent American Religious Identification Survey indicates 29% of the people living in my state (New Hampshire) have no religious identity. Not Christian, not Jewish, not Muslim, not Buddhist - not anything. This is up 20% in the past 18 years. Yet the Church of Jesus Christ continues to grow everywhere in the world outside the West. The Church of the West is in trouble, the Church of the Bible is not.
In response, many pastors and Christian leaders are on a quest for an elusive thing – cultural relevance. Many see such relevance as the key to communicating the Gospel effectively to generations which have yet to be truly impacted by its message. And while we would applaud their missional concern and their desire to once again impact the society for Christ, we are not sure that cultural relevance is what we should be aiming for. An honest appraisal of the Gospel as compared to some of our Western cultural norms shows some dramatic divergence. For the Christian disciple, the way up is down, the way to gain your life is to lose it, the way to lead is to serve. Seems a little different than the current version of the American Dream, as we see a combination of personal and corporate greed wreck the economy as companies sold things to people who were lusting for what they could not afford. Not exactly Matthew 6:33.
No, Christianity is counter-cultural to the West, as the Gospel speaks prophetically against much of the self-absorbed nature of our society. It is counter-intuitive, as it does not support the current morals and values of the West, seemingly wrong to those steeped in the materialistic, hedonistic lifestyle at the core of our civilization. To make the point simply, the recent “economic crisis” happened in part because people stopped buying stuff. Times got tough, people got smart, savings went up, personal debt went down (first time since WWII) – and this was bad for the economy. So the government had to spend for us, and for our kids and grandkids. But that’s another article.
So, what then about culture? The Church exists within culture, incarnates within culture and communicates the Gospel within culture. A proper “cultural exegesis” is required for a local church to effectively minister in any given environment. So, culture cannot be escaped, but the issue is not cultural relevance, because the Gospel is not relevant to culture. It’s relevant to people.
For 2000 years, in many different parts of the world, in many different cultures, the Gospel of the Kingdom and its message of salvation have impacted billions of people – and changed and shaped cultures – through the people who have been transformed by Christ. The individuals, couples and families who have entered into the new birth and then been used by God to bring change to the culture. They have been so affected because the Gospel speaks to the core human needs of significance, transcendence and belonging. The needs of people. People’s hearts must change before they can change their culture. In effect, true Christianity is a counter-cultural, revolutionary in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into the lives and affairs of men. The Kingdom advances one heart at a time. The hearts of people. This spiritual revolution initiated by Christ is not propagated by institutions on organizations – but by His people. It is shared person to person, life to life. It is an organic reality that transcends culture. In fact, every culture at some point must bow its knee to Jesus. We don’t need to dominate culture nor morph ourselves to mate with it – we need to be salt and light within it, ministering the love and life of Jesus to people.
Perhaps it is that God in His sovereign plan is allowing the Church in the West to lose its cultural influence so as to de-couple us from it, so that we can minister to the people within it. We could leave the Culture War behind (we lost anyway) and engage in a war of love and service to people. No longer being the center pole of Western civilization, we can’t expect people to come to us, we must go to them, going with a heart of love embodied in sharing God’s truth, compassion and justice.
So, abandon your quest to hit the moving target of cultural relevance, and go find people to love on, in Jesus name. When He transforms enough of us, He can transform our society. Go engage some people.
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