A QUESTION FOR YOU ALL!
Here is a question to consider;
Is your church more interested in being friendly to the culture or transforming it. Is there a difference and if so, what is it and what are the inherent dangers?
I look forward to your thoughts as we think together for His glory!
pastor tom
Is your church more interested in being friendly to the culture or transforming it. Is there a difference and if so, what is it and what are the inherent dangers?
I look forward to your thoughts as we think together for His glory!
pastor tom
posted by Anonymous | 3:57 AM
5 Comments:
Hey everyone,
This is quite thr blog, good question...What are the inherent dangers of being of today's culture? My answer could be summed up in one word, influence. Who is being influenced today, the world by the church, or the church by the world. We have a lot of supposed "Christian" authors telling us not to worry about belief or doctrine, but rather to be concerned with how we treat the world, making sure they "feel good" around us.
I'm not gonna go off on a tangent about how we as Christians need to be hated in this world. We should NOT go around looking for people to hate us. However Christ did say that the world hated Him and if we are of Him, they will hate us too. So the inherent dangers of this type of thinking is simple...Who are we influencing? And are we being influenced by the world in how we carry on our lives, how we go about doing church, and how we go about being Christian in a world that is not?
God bless everyone of you at the Young Refromers Fellowship
-Nate Cook
The purpose of the church is to show the world the wisedom and goodness of God(Eph.3:10). If this is the goal, then our desire is to be a transorming influence by the proclomation of God's word; both from the living of our lives and the words we speak as a church.
Amen brotha, amen!
-Nate
key element being the word and not some method or event etc etc etc..
good comments guys!!
This is not to say that we don't have to think about culture. If we are to proclaim God's goodness to the world, then it needs to be proclaimed in a language that is understood. The key is that the language or culture serves the word of God, not the other way around. If something in culture is contrary to God's word, it is sin, period. At the same time, I need to be careful that I am saying what I think I'm saying, both in my words and in my actions. It is no different in the church. If I find that the current culture does not like authority, for example, my goal is to change culture by showing them the goodness of God in how He has set up His church. In this case, we do not change God's plan for the church to fit the culture, or create a church for that culture. We are trying to bring those people INTO the church.
The other side of this is that actions and/or words may signify something completely different between different cultures. For example, dress does not signify respect or lack of respect in the same way it once did. It is proper to show respect, but how we dress to show that respect (if it signifies respect at all) will depend on culture. If scripture doesn't tell us how to dress, then we need to express what He does tell us to do.
So we need to be careful not to love our own culture as if it were the word of God. Implicit in the goal to proclaim God's word is the need for the message to be understood. I don't think this is easy. It is something we need to check our hearts on continuously.
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