The Challenge of the 21st Century Church, killing the Christian subculture and emerging as a spiritual counterculture
So with those two terms, subculture, and counterculture many of you are assuming that what is to follow is some postmodern, emerging/emergent dribble. I hope that is not the case.
50 years ago, the United States was predominately a "Christian Nation", that pride itself on it's Judeo-Christian ethic. Today, we are a secular nation which is based on secular humanism.
Over the last 50 or so years, the foundations of this nation's morality have been replaced. They have gone from being based on certain morals inspired by the Divine, to ethics, and ideals propagated from the notion humanity can be it's own savior.
In the late 90's and the early part of this century it was called the Culture War. We still see remnants every Christmas, when talking heads on the conservative cable news channel try to get us all railed up over some chain having a "Holiday Sale" vs. a "Christmas Sale". Can I be honest, We lost the culture war.
The people in our nation are the furthest from God they have ever been in the 230 year History of America. Our culture thrives on lust of sex, violence, food. Pornography is easier to obtain than ever. Every form of entertainment is laced with gratuitous violence.
As our nation has shifted over the course of the last 50 years, the church has developed its own subculture. We have continued to follow the pattern of the overall culture, except we have just laced it with our own clever witty christineeze. Instead of Budweiser shirts, we have God-Wiser shirts. instead of clever witty bumper stickers about how a good day fishing is better than a bad day at work, we have bumper stickers about our boss being a Jewish Carpenter, or letting God be our co-pilot. We have our own Christian Bookstores that sell the same useless garbage we can buy at any Hallmark, but we like it better because it is "Christian".
In an attempt to maintain cultural relevance, we have marginalized our faith. In an attempt to be hip and cool, we have become wannabe's and posers, neither impacting the world nor growing the church.
It is time for the church to cease being a subculture. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we could wear nail crosses, and eat testamints. Jesus died so that we could have spiritual life, follow His example, and show others the light He showed us.
Jesus wasn't a subculture guy, he wasn't about trying to make his own subgenera of the Jewish Faith. On the contrary, Jesus was a revolutionary counterculture kind of guy. Don't believe me? Look at his interactions with the ruling class. Almost every time, he interacted with the leaders of the day, they wanted to kill him. Why is that?
Jesus paid more attention to people than he did rules. Of course he admonished EVERYONE to repent and turn from their sin, but he didn't let sin stand between him and a person. Look at the woman at the well, Jesus went up to this lady, who in her town, had such a bad reputation that she refused to draw from the well when the other ladies were, and just talked to her. How many of us "Christians" would spend time to talk to the person in town with the "Worst" reputation?
This is just one example of why Jesus was a counterculture kind of guy. He didn't care about the norms. Look at the temple. The Jewish religious leaders were fine with money changers in the temple ripping off foreigners. But for some reason, this Rabbi from Nazareth wasn't having the status quo. He saw these men as cheats, and thieves, and he chased them out.
To continue to be effective in the 21st Century, the Church must kill off this Subculture, and embrace a countercultural movement that looks beyond the traditional four corners of the church building, into the community it resides. He must look beyond the churched, and reach out to the unchurched.
This is more than just becoming seeker sensitive. The biggest failure of the seeker sensitive movement is their ability to speak the truth. I hate to say it but the Gospel is offensive. Jesus himself said it was. We are lying to ourself, if we think that we can always make it non-offensive. To be honest if the Gospel we present is non-offensive to everyone, then we have watered down the message.
Now I don't mean we should be offensive for the sake of being offensive. But we should be unapologetic in our beliefs. If we hold our beliefs to be universal truths, then we should communicate them in love.
So how does this happen? How does the church move from being this subculture, this copycat, rip off version of the world, and become a culture unto itself. I have some thoughts.
Identity, The key to being what God called the church to be is to understand our Identity. First as believers, second as the church collectively. Romans calls us (individually) the children of God. As followers of Christ, we have moved beyond spiritual death into spiritual life. As the church we are the united body of Christ.
While relevance to the world is important, authenticity can never be lost. So many churches and pastors this day and age try to be hip, and cool when they aren't. People are more put off by wannabe's and posers than by stuffy preachers. Not that I think preachers should ever be stuffy, but I hope you get the idea. When you act like someone your not, the only person you are fooling is yourself. When people see through a facade they lose trust and confidence. Your going to be more relevant to someone by just being who you are as you come by it honestly, than if you put on some fake personality.
Finally, how does the Church become countercultural. Our culture has become a narcissistic, self absorbed, conceited, shallow, and vain culture. (thank you thesaurus.com) So how about we, meaning the church start putting others before ourselves. I know that sounds really hard doesn't it. I mean, we all are able to do the easy stuff right? Holding doors open for others, who can't resist that. But what about the hard stuff? What happens when putting others before you causes you to have to sacrifice.
Listen I have not arrived at this yet by all means. I am guilty of being shallow, vain, and narcissistic. But we have to change. If we believe, that Jesus, the Son of God came to this earth to die for the sins of this world, we have to show people that there is more to life than just living for one's self.
We can talk about it, sure, but in this hour, God is I believe looking for a generation willing to put up or shut up. Our culture is no longer compatible to the Christian message. As long as we try to force it to fit to the world, we fail.
It is my desire to see a community of followers of Christ, rise up to the challenges the church faces in this new century. I want to see a community of people who know who they are in Christ, willing to be relevant, but more importantly real, and finally a people more concerned with the well being of others, than they are the well being of themselves.
Can we create such a community? Across borders, churches, denominations, theological beliefs? Is such a universal church possible? I dare to believe that it is.
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