Pop Culture vs. Church Culture

Our ideas and actions cannot exist outside of context, and one facet of context is culture. Over the past thirty years, we have seen a transition in many evangelical churches to a “seeker sensitive” model of worship & organization. Since the inception of this movement we have seen more strife and church splits over the battle of traditional vs. contemporary, than we have seen from any other debate. Out of this ongoing issue comes the question: to what degree should the church reflect the culture in which it exists? I feel that this is the wrong question, because it has taken the ‘church’ from its proper definition as a people, and applied it to the organization and its building.

Questions concerning the degree of pop culture reflected in the local church can quickly become a matter of how much ‘we’ let ‘them’ be themselves in ‘our church.’ I feel that this view of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has led to the Pharisee-like attitude held by so many Christians today. “We cannot be like them, nor can we allow our people to be seduced by their ways. They cannot be a part of our organization until they look and act like us. That is how we can discern a true conversion.”

The answer to this mindset has been an American-Christian culture that has further separated itself from the world, and reattached itself with a filter that takes the new & wonderful of pop culture and repackages it for the Christian mindset. Now you can have special Christian clothes, jewelry, art, music, bumper stickers, mints, and anything else you can slap a scripture verse on. The Christian marketing machine guarantees you that with their help you too can rid your family of any resemblance or connection to the world, and secure their eternity in Heaven by removing any avenue for pagan influence.

I feel the right questions we should be asking are:

- To what degree should Christian culture & pop culture be present in a Christian’s life?

- To what degree should Christians be present in the culture where their community of faith exists?

By looking at the right questions we can take a step back to see the incarnational & relational aspects of Jesus’ ministry, and its reflection in the words & actions of Paul in his journeys through the various cultures of the Mediterranean basin.

The church has never been more irrelevant to so many people who do not know God. We need to realize that there must be authentic relationships built where people can see Christ in you, and hear the good news in a context that they understand. Neither of these can happen unless we reconnect with the culture we live in.

On the side of worship culture, I feel we have to move away from the seeker model and restore those aspects of worship and structure that were removed. It has been the experience of myself and others that those who want ‘real’ Christians they can connect with also want a Christianity that is just as authentic. They don’t want it watered down and stripped of meaning, they want it to be special – to be sacred.

They don’t want to be manipulated into something else, nor do they want us to be like them. They just want us to be authentic in doing life with them, and to be ourselves as people called to live a Christlike life.

Behold... the iPoo!

Wow. I thought this was a joke, but it is in fact a sad example of the lengths a company will go to wring a little more profit out of the iPod culture.

I have dubbed it the iPoo, but it is actually called the iCarta. For the low price of $69, you too can enjoy your favorite playlist or podcast while using the restroom without those pesky earbuds getting in the way of your business.

The only thing left to ponder is do iFold or do iWad...

A Relational God & His Relational Creation

We have spent a considerable amount of time in our first three weeks of Personal & Spiritual Development of the Minister completing a lot of tests and analysis tools, to look at who we are. Now that we are finishing up these tests I have been contemplating their value to us as people, and specifically to me in the context of ministry.

Being a relational people, everything we do is a reaction to the world around us. What we believe, think, say, and do all comes out of what we observe in our experiences, and how we choose to respond.

Many of our choices/reactions come out of our brokenness. I am not just talking about our disposition to self over God, but also those personality traits & qualities that are the result of our reactions to our negative experiences in life. Some results of negative experiences can be good, but many of them have become deficiencies & surpluses that are unhealthy.

In my own experiences with the MBTI, Enneagram, & StrengthsQuest tests I have found myself to be an ENFJ, enneagram 3/7, and strong in gathering info, strategizing, establishing & cultivating relationships, building & respecting connectedness, and seeing everything in context.

While I feel being an ENFJ is a great thing, I also understand that I need to know just as much about how other types act/react. This knowledge can both prevent troubles with people because of misunderstanding one's intent, and help me to be aware of the representation of types in my church's staff & leadership (or lack of).

The enneagram has shown me that I go the extra mile in an effort to earn the approval of people that I admire & want to work with. This can be a healthy motivator (especially for someone with ADHD like myself) to finish a task in a complete & timely manner; but it can also be unhealthy if it were to get out of control and lead me to deceive others, in an attempt to advance myself and/or hinder the advancement of anyone that I saw as a competitor.

The other side I have noticed through the enneagram book & conversations with my wife is that while I am a #3-Performer in the professional world, I revert back to a #7-Epicure around those who are close to me. After a long day/week of performing for those from whom I seek approval, I come home to people that I don't have to earn approval from. In this safe place I can recover from & offset my time as a #3 with time as a somewhat self-preferencing #7, by relaxing, and doing things that interest me -- sometimes at the expense of my wife's wants & needs, and those things that I need to get done on the home front.

I am too early in my study & contemplation of the StrengthsQuest to offer my thoughts, but I can already see how each one of these 'strengths' can become 'weaknesses' or 'hindrances' in excess.

As eikons of God we must find the cracks and voids before we can fix them, and that includes looking deeper at ourselves and how we interact with the world around us in everyday life.

A Week of Missional

I have had a week of much information & conversation. I spent most of last week reading Darrell Guder's Missional Church. Then I spent Friday & Saturday at MidAmerica Nazarene University for a Postmodern Youth Ministry conversation with Tony Jones. Although I do some teaching with high school youth, I mainly went to be part of the conversation as one who is preparing to plant a new faith community.

Friday night the KC cohort had dinner with Tony, Mike King, and Tim Keel. I was finally able to attend a cohort gathering since I was already in town for the conference. It was great to hear about all things Emergent. To hear about all of the new titles coming out & the dialogue that they will hopefully begin. Tony was also talking about the importance cohorts are beginning to play in the conversation. Scot McKnight asked a cohort to review the manuscript for his new book, and give their thoughts & comments. This kind of intentional involvement is a testament to the desire of those leading voices of the emerging conversation, to have an ongoing dialogue that includes everyone on an equal level despite their position in the church, academia, or Emergent.

I enjoyed the first part of a discussion about Missional Leadership on Saturday morning with Dean Blevins & Mike King, but I unfortunately had to miss the rest to get back to Topeka.

Monday I talked with one of my profs about a conversation going on between peoples from various denominations and Allelon about seeing a transition towards a missional community of faith within each participating denomination. Everyone involved is looking at the context of their denomination's ecclesiology & missiology, to discern the direction that would best lead their church towards a missional identity.

I look forward to continuing this conversation both at seminary on the denominational level, our Emergent friends nationwide & locally, and with the new gathering my wife & I have started. We continue to meet more people that have either stayed away from God, left the church, or are getting ready to -- all because of Christians. There are so many people who do not have a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, because of the hypocrisy & ungodly actions of people in the church.

It is my hope that a new look at Jesus through the lense of the missio Dei, and an authentic incarnational community will help them to see the difference between Christ-followers and the Christians that they have experienced.

Alright already!

Finally. After years spent as a nomad wandering throughout the blogosphere, I have finally decided to start sharing my own thoughts, questions, ideas, & dilemmas in a blog. Sure many of you have enjoyed my rants live & in person, but I am always better off putting my thoughts on the page (or screen as it may be) so that I might best express myself in a clear, complete, and concise way.

See, this is working already. This intro was 37 minutes long in my head!

Peace & Love,
Jason