Ridgell's Originals

 Most of us grew up when church was popular.  At least on the surface.  Almost everyone would say you should go to church.  Church was recongnized as an absolutly positive influence in our culture.  Ministers were respected and admired.  

Because it was our normal, we never really processed the problems with this.  After all, for almost all the history of the church, we have been at odds with culture.  That is when we grew.  It cost something to become a Christian.  It almost ensured that you would not be popular and/or respected by culture. 

but being popular came with a cost.  One of the those was that we missed the reality.  Most people didn't really like church.  Certainly did not buy in.  They may have said the right things, but they didn't mean them.  It became easy to have church membership just like it was a civic club.  Or a place to enhance your business opportunities.  Even our elders were usually sucessful men by community standards.  Did not automatically mean they could not be good elders, but we did not even see the difference between social leaders and spiritual leaders.

We lost the drive to convert people.  Because we assumed everyone liked church/Jesus, then the question became which church was right.  What you had to do to become a Christian became a matter of great debate.  How to worship.  Or church structure (very cultural concept, not so much a Biblical concept).  So we assumed people believed in Jesus and wanted to be in church, it was just a matter of the details.  

We were wrong.  Bred a lot of church loyalty instead of Jesus followers.

And we got sloppy with our standards.  Got so cozy with culture that we really forgot how to study to see how God expected us to live.  So when culture/community standards changed, we had no idea what to do. Some got so confused, they started spended a lot of time and energy on trying to change culture so we would all be in harmony.  Some found new ways to interpret Scripture so we stayed in cultural harmony.

And because it fit culture, we spent a lot of money on buildings, budgets, and professional staff.  

I would like to think we Christians are so numerous and so persuasive that we influence culture.  But that never did seem to be what Jesus expected.  Or what Jesus did.  

Maybe we should be teaching how to live counter-culturally.

Because this world is not our home.  And our Kingdom is not of this world. 

# posted by Steve @ 5:00 AM