Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There are some books that after you turn the last page, you know you will be different. You can’t always explain why, but in the course of reading it, you know something deep within you has been changed. This book has had that effect on me.
I only read it because Amazon suggested it, and it did go along with some of my dissertation research. A couple of times, in the beginning, I thought about reading something else instead, but I continued on and I’m glad I did.
Crouch discusses “cultures” and how Christians interact with the cultures around them. Instead of calling Christians have postures of being against culture, critiquing culture, consuming culture, or transformation culture, he calls them to create culture (which according to Crouch is what God calls us to do).
For me, the best part of the book was Part 3 where he eloquently invites all to be culture makers for the sake of the Gospel.
Introduction To The Missional Church by Alan Roxburgh
Introducing the Missional Church: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One by Alan J. Roxburgh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is probably the best book I’ve read introducing the missional church. Roxburgh does an excellent job describing what missional ministry is, and what it isn’t.
The one critique I do have is the time he spent describing the process he takes churches through (I’m guessing in a consulting role). I wished he would have given some more direction for local pastors in cultivating “missional imagination” within their congregations. Perhaps he does this in his book “Missional Map-making” which I have not read yet.
Experimental Ministry
Alan Roxburgh discusses Missional Imagination in his book “Introduction to the Missional Church.” In discussing Saul (later Paul) and his transformation he writes,
“Information and definitions were not the issue; what Saul needed was a radical transformation of his imagination-of the way in which he saw the world.”
So Roxburgh basically defines imagination as “how one sees the world.” One might argue that “how one sees the world” is an adequate description of one’s culture or at least one’s worldview. In his book, he calls for individuals to be transformed so they might see the world and themselves through a missional lens. This shift to a missional worldview is ultimately what I desire for those whom I pastor.
The problem is, making shifts in culture and worldview is easier talked about than accomplished. Andy Crouch address this in his book Culture Making. He says it is much easier analyzing the culture than actually changing it. In discussing why it is difficult to change a culture (or perhaps worldview), he has a very perceptive quote:
The language of worldview tends to imply, to paraphrase the Catholic writer Richard Rohr, that we can think ourselves into new ways of behaving. But that is not the way culture works. Culture helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking.
It seems that I’ve been taught that if people can think in new ways, it means there will be changes in their worldview. However, that might not be the case. What if, the culture has more affect on my thinking than my thinking has on the culture? What are the implications for a church that has been living in a certain culture for decades? I’m not sure we are going to “think” our way out of it.
What Roxburgh calls for (and Crouch may too…I’m only about 1/4 of the way through the book) is for experiments in ministry. If new ways of acting cause changes in the accepted culture, then the best thing we can do to change the culture, is to introduce new desired behaviors.
Perhaps this is why some translate Matthew 28:19 as “Therefore in your going make disciples…”
Jesus Sacrificed…so You Don’t Have To
Right now I’m reading Michael Slaughter’s new book Change The World. So far it is a great book and I really admire Slaughter for changing gears when he senses that God is moving in a different direction. At one point he writes,
“It is not acceptable to make doctrine and church meetings a substitute for sacrificial service.”
When I read that I found myself reflecting on the term “sacrificial service.” I don’t find our culture interested in much sacrifice. While we celebrate those who do sacrifice for others it seems like most of our lives are about avoiding sacrifice. To sacrifice means we are giving up things that we might not want to; things we care for, things we need, things we want. To sacrifice means we give them up, usually, for greater purposes.
That is not the message I get from culture, or many times, from the church. The message I continue to hear goes something like this: Jesus sacrificed, so you don’t have to. The message basically goes: Because Jesus gave himself up for us (which he did), we can have a good life with all of our dreams and desires. In fact, I just saw a video the other day where the tag line was, “What can God do for you?” Catchy? yes. I don’t think it is good theology though.
God is not our servant. We are his however. I believe Slaughter is right. If we are serious about our faith, our relationship with God, and being faithful to the gospel, there will be sacrificial service. It means we might be driving our cars a few more years so we can give the amount we are saving from car payments to God’s purposes. It might mean we take less expensive vacations, or put less in our 401Ks. It might mean we spend less time watching tv or entertaining ourselves so we can be available to God’s purposes. Whatever the case, it will mean we are giving up (sacrificing) something that we believe is important.
Culture tells us that it is okay to give to God’s purposes what we think we can afford. For most of us after we give to God we are still able to live at a very high level. In fact, we give to God only those things we believe we can live without. That is not sacrifice.
I wonder how the world would be different if those of us in the church began sacrificing more.
My Dissertation Project
I have started my dissertation project which is a good thing. Trying to explain it though is kind of difficult. The reason I have such difficult explaining it is because the project address cultural issues and the church’s response.
I have read that there is an old Chinese proverb that says, “If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish.” For me, that explains the problem I have with explaining my project. I’m sure if I asked a fish, it wouldn’t even know it was swimming in water. It is the same with our culture. Culture is so pervasive that we don’t even know much about it. Our culture is just “how things are.”
My project has to do with the church’s response to culture. Not just the culture we live in, but any culture. In order to respond, we must first take a look at the culture and see how and where it flows against the gospel. This is difficult to do because for most of us, culture is simply “the way things are” and we don’t think too much about it. In fact, throughout our lives we merge the gospel with culture in which we live. The result is we believe that some aspects of our culture are actually biblical even when they are not. This is a difficult thing to discover.
The most biblical response I have found is offered by Missional Ecclesiology (a fancy way to say “thoughts about the church”). A Missional approach to church basically says that we have been sent by God into the world to be an agent, instrument, sign, and foretaste of God’s kingdom. The church (or rather people making up the church) is to understand the differences between the current “kingdoms” (cultures) and God’s kingdom and work to put God’s will and way into practice.
The question that my dissertation attempts to answer is, How can this happen in the life of an individual? In other words, how do we get from where we are (children of our culture…or fish in water) to where we are working and living by God’s will and way?
I hope to be able to explain it better as I work on the project more, but for now, that about sums things up.
Powered by FireStats