Things Have Changed (part 3 of 3)…click HERE to read part 1 or HERE to read part 2.

When I want to talk to Amber about something, I have to pay attention to her first. In other words, it is difficult to demand attention if we don’t pay attention. You can talk without listening, but then whatever you say is seen as very one sided.

Part of our job as the church is to answer people’s questions. But if we don’t listen to people first, we’ll just be answering questions no one is asking!

Every year we do a series called God on Film in the summer that explores spiritual themes in the summer’s blockbuster hits. Now why in the world would we do that? Simple: the sixty percent of Americans who don’t attend church get their theology from movies and music. For better or for worse, 60% of Americans look to musicians and movie makers for their theology.

Our culture is shaped in a BIG WAY by the movies we watch and the music we listen to. That leaves the church with a choice. We can ignore the movies and music, we can point our finger and say “bad bad bad!” Or we can talk about them. God on Film is our annual time to dialogue about the movies that are literally shaping the culture of nearly 200 million un-churched Americans.

Some would say that God on Film is just a watered-down way to get people to church, but the truth is that it’s actually one of our hardest hitting sermon series because Hollywood is brutally honest about the human condition. And, it gives us more cultural capital than any other series we do.

I hope you got something from this three part series on our culture and how it has changed. It is time for the church to be serious about staying in touch with culture and finding those spiritual touch points. It is time to redeem the cultural metaphors that are out there so that we can communicate the Gospel. After all, that’s exactly what Jesus did in His parables. He shared God’s truth in ways that his culture could grasp.

We can choose to ignore the culture around us, but all that does is bury the church alive. It’s tough to reach people when you are under seven feet of dirt!

Things Have Changed (part 2 of 3)…click HERE to read part 1.

There are four options for the church when it comes to interacting with culture.  We can:

• cage culture
• comply with culture
• condemn culture
• create culture

We could just completely cage culture and do our own thing, but then we cease to do exactly what Jesus told us to do in the Great Commission.  When we choose to ignore culture and put it in a cage, we become irrelevant.  As a response the world cages the church right back.  And when you are in a cage, you can’t really reach out all that far.

We could try to be like culture and comply with it.  But this isn’t a good option either because we want to shape culture rather than be shaped by it.

We could point our fingers and condemn culture but that is just a cop out.  If we condemn culture, culture will condemn us.  Pointing the finger is the worst form of spiritual laziness.  What if instead we decided to work our tails off and offer some incredible opportunities and alternatives in our culture?

Ignoring, complying with, and condemning culture will kill the church.  But there is a healthy option.  It’s an option full of dangerous, real, deep, meaningful, messy life change.  It’s an option that should only be taken by those who are serious about loving God and loving people.  The last option is to be a part of creating culture.

The Italian artist Michelangelo said it best when he said to “criticize by creating.”

In the end, our culture will treat us just like we treat it.  Jesus never called the church to be out there condemning, imitating, or ignoring culture.  He called us to REDEEM it.

Things have changed. Part 1 of 3.

I read Judges 2 this morning. In verse 10 it says this: “After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.”

The church used to have a cultural monopoly. But not anymore. The church is officially the minority in our country. What does that mean for us? It means that we can’t afford to do church the way it’s always been done. Our tactics must change.

The message is still the same, but methods are not. The minute we decide that our methods are the only correct way to go, is the same minute that we will stop pushing forward into the future and start repeating the past. I want to continue to connect at TCC through creativity and imagination…not out of memory. If we don’t get in touch with the times, the church will end up right where the Israelites found themselves in Judges 2:10.  Repeating the same dumb mistakes over and over again.

Too many churches are getting passing grades in Bible study and failing grades in being in touch with people. We may know some Scripture, but we are out of touch with the times. So we unintentionally create a BIG GAP between theology and reality. We NEED to understand our culture so that we can start to close that gap. How can we accomplish Christ’s mission (love God and love people) when we are so out of touch with the people we are supposed to reach?