Andy Crouch of The Christian Vision Project was recently interviewed on the Catalyst podcast. He made some interesting points which I’ll summarize for our loyal CMS readers. Essentially, Andy presents a picture of the way we, the church, relate with the world around us (keep in mind that these are his ideas in my words).
There are two basic ways we present ourselves to the world as believers: gestures and postures. Gestures are the things we do, and postures are the way we carry ourselves. For example, bending over might be an appropriate gesture, but it’s not an appropriate posture, as it’s not good for everything.
There are a few ways we interact with the world. We might be critics, consumers, or condemners. And all of these are appropriate gestures. We ought to act this way towards certain issues. For example, we ought to condemn the Holocaust. We ought to consume food. We ought to criticize public issues to bring light to them.
These would not be, however, appropriate postures. To always do these things would be detrimental. Our postures should be of creativity and cultivation. These are two separate roles; an artist creates new things not in the world to make the world better, while a gardener takes the beautiful things of the world and cares for them that they might be their best.
Crouch’s ideas are a great example of how we must interact with the world. Which is, essentially, marketing. Many people get hung up with putting church and marketing in the same sentence, but primarily, marketing is community, evangelism and outreach. We must ask ourselves the tough questions: What are we doing to make the world better? How are we creating? What are we cultivating?
The church should not merely respond to culture and copy culture. We should cultivate culture and create culture.
John O
May 30, 2007
Quote: “We must ask ourselves the tough questions: What are we doing to make the world better?”
As I read this article, I agreed with most of what was said here. However towards the end of the article, the aforementioned quote really struck a chord with me, because I feel that we as Christians have a misconception that our duty is to make the world a better a place. Now here me out on this issue before you label me a heretic.
As we see in Ephesians 1, God the Father’s purpose in election, Christ’s purpose in redemption, and the Holy Spirit’s purpose in redemption is in order for the Lord to be glorified. God has been concerned with one thing and that is the praise of His glory. So we see that God’s purpose that has been established “before the foundations of the world” is His glory.
With that in mind the present divine purpose of this age is not the conversion of the world, but rather the calling out from the world those who will believe in Christ to form the body of Christ, the church. Don’t get me wrong, the world will be converted and God will establish a kingdom of righteousness on the earth, but it will not be a result of Christian service. This day is said to follow rather than precede the return of Christ–it is only made possible through Christ’s personal presence and immediate power.
So it is important to understand that the immediate purpose of God is not the correction of the evil in the world, but the calling out of all who will believe. In light of this, in our present age, never is the individual believer (or even the church for that matter) called by God to a world-improvement program. Rather, the believer is called to be a witness in all the world to Jesus Christ and His saving grace. Through this ministry (Acts 1:8) the Holy Spirit will acheive God’s His purpose for this age as well as His divine purpose that He has set for eternity.
John O
May 30, 2007
Quote: “We must ask ourselves the tough questions: What are we doing to make the world better?”
As I read this article, I agreed with most of what was said here. However towards the end of the article, the aforementioned quote really struck a chord with me, because I feel that we as Christians have a misconception that our duty is to make the world a better a place. Now here me out on this issue before you label me a heretic.
As we see in Ephesians 1, God the Father’s purpose in election, Christ’s purpose in redemption, and the Holy Spirit’s purpose in redemption is in order for the Lord to be glorified. God has been concerned with one thing and that is the praise of His glory. So we see that God’s purpose that has been established “before the foundations of the world” is His glory.
With that in mind the present divine purpose of this age is not the conversion of the world, but rather the calling out from the world those who will believe in Christ to form the body of Christ, the church. Don’t get me wrong, the world will be converted and God will establish a kingdom of righteousness on the earth, but it will not be a result of Christian service. This day is said to follow rather than precede the return of Christ–it is only made possible through Christ’s personal presence and immediate power.
So it is important to understand that the immediate purpose of God is not the correction of the evil in the world, but the calling out of all who will believe. In light of this, in our present age, never is the individual believer (or even the church for that matter) called by God to a world-improvement program. Rather, the believer is called to be a witness in all the world to Jesus Christ and His saving grace. Through this ministry (Acts 1:8) the Holy Spirit will acheive God’s His purpose for this age as well as His divine purpose that He has set for eternity.