3 collisions
Where are we?
What’s happening?
How do we come alongside our culture, which is…
Post Modern = a scepticism toward certainty.
Post Christian – church is not at centre of culture any more. We’re sidelined.
Pluralistic – Judeo Christian values no longer dominate. All faiths not not just tolerated but celebrated.
We can entrench and react from fear? Or seize the new day.
Possibilities are
1) Seperatist – world is the enemy, I fight it.
2) Submerge in culture. I’m the same as it. Blend in.
3) RESTORE.
To do that we have to understand the gospel. Know the story of God and find your place in it.
Seperatist story only has two parts – 1) sin 2) saved.
That’s true – but incomplete.
Submerged story only has good deeds, disconnected from Christ.
Restorers know the story has an ending which involves partnering with God for the restoration.
We’ve been given the call to restore. First things are first. We’re responsible to use our talents and gifts to restore. Don’t be scared or offended by broken world – ENGAGE with it. Go there.
Don’t be a critic – be a Creator, creatively engaging, for…
The KINGDOM. We have people all around us in churches but disconnected to what Christ wants to do through them. That gives us a great opportunity. Everyone gets to have a ministry now! Media, education, wherever. They are not there to show up and serve the church. We have to recognise that as we look at congregations we are seeing an army of people who are already on mission.
Just as much as those on mission to foreign lands. Affirm and celebrate that, to see a revolution, and awakening.
Culture changes when leaders work together toward a common goal. Business leaders, artists and politicians moved strategically to take their ideas forward.
What convenes these sectors on a weekly basis? Only the church can do that in your city. It’s doing it.
Invert the pyramid. Mentor the leaders in the workplaces where they have been called. Give them something to do, inspire them to be part of God’s greatest plan, creatively using their plan.
Isaiah 58
if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.