The other day I gathered with some fellow youth pastor
friends to talk about how Christianity engages the questions of culture. The
four of us were all over the map as far as the “how to” part although we all
seemed to agree on what truths our faith has for the people around us. In my
opinion the ability to engage and change the culture around us is one of our
most important activities as believers. St. Paul tells us in his letter to the
Corinthians that we are ambassadors. Ambassadors are not from the country they
reside in, they dwell there hoping to impact the place they are stationed with
their home country’s values.
My fear is the amount of time we spend impacting the culture
in our already believing congregations that we run out of steam to go and
impact our communities. Culture is asking hard questions that the Gospel has
answers to. The economy, morality, the place of government, educations, violent
conflict, tragedies both human and natural all keep our secular friends awake
at night. They don’t think our faith has the answers or they would show up in
droves.
These observations are nothing new. I am only spouting what
the literature has been telling us for years. The next step is experimentation.
Trying new things or retrying old things and recognizing that it is better to
try and fail then to sit on the side lines waiting for a solution to hit us
over the head.
For Grace UMC it means a youth group that will remain
flexible. Certain aspects will look like the traditional Youth Ministries of
our parents and some of it will not. One thing I enjoy about the Christian
faith is that when it is practiced Biblically it is not a cultural phenomenon. As
culture changes so can the application of faith. I think we went to sleep one
day and woke up to a changed culture. Like many other times in history the
application must change. Not for change sake, but for the souls of men (and
women).
Peace!
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