Jan
22
22
The Culture-Driven-Church
Posted under Church, Culture by FPeatrossToday I’ve been thinking about how we have traditonally done things and why we continue to do them the way we do. Maybe the greater question is why we are so resistant to changing the way we do things when there isn’t any biblical basis for most of what we do (in method, style, or format).
Think about it. “Church” is now defined for people by what we do. And this has become a gigantic barrier for the church in being the church. I am sadden by the “fruit” – shallow, inwardly focused, culture driven, priority given to the service of felt-needs, and consumer oriented. What we have in the majority of our churches are people who “go to church” as opposed to Christians who are the church.
I agree with much of what you have said. My heart’s cry for many years has been for “the church to BE the church!” I think we can be that WITH our current methodologies or WITHOUT them. It’s more of a heart issue/mindset than a methodology in my view. When we focus on leading people into a right heart relationship with Jesus (and the natural extension of that is a right heart relationship toward others) then we will begin to see the fruit that we long to see!
it’s the difference betwee an attractional church and a missional church
I have been reading “Money, Possessions and Eternity” by Randy Alcorn. It has been a good study. It has highlighted another important part of this idea. The conflict of humble, servanthood to Christ verses elitist, arrogant, self-serving personal reliance. The physical and communal action of “church” takes a much different tone depending on which of these two underlying ethics by which we live. I am impressed with how much of the biblical narrative addresses this foundational and individual heart issue (all of it) vs defining some specific organizational or performance construct. A construct that we seem to have and continue to be on some holy quest for in our religious lives. But, in reality, this distraction is one Satan’s greatest tools blinding us from the salvation already earned and Church community already born by Christ himself.
We need to affirm what God is giving us in community. We must continue to point a bright light at church function that does not promote community in Jesus’ name. We have to be intensely reliant on God. Our Christian community must value/seek humility. We should aggresively battle injustice, arrogance, fear and elitism that is pervasive in the American churches(white, black, Hispanic and Asian). We must purge from our hearts the spirit of insecurity that seeks to build spiritual towers of Babel to justify our inheritance of salvation and stand strong in the redemptive Grace of God.
To the American church, hear God’s call from the captivity of self-worshipping irrelevance.
Add A Comment