Christ & Culture

I’ts Sunday morning. Look around the pews. Where are all the young people? Where is the future of the Church? … It’s Saturday night. Walk into a nightclub. There is the field, plentiful with harvest.
They will never wander into our potlucks, our services, our special activities. They will certainly not take the initiative to join us for Sunday morning worship. Yet, Jesus tells us that the harvest is plentiful. Where are we, the harvesters, while God’s beloved die in the nightclubs, the bars, and behind the closed doors of their apartments, all those places hidden from our sight? How can we build bridges from our world to theirs, from bars to Bible studies? …
When we invite them to a church service, we may as well be saying, “Come to an African tribal meeting. We’ll chant some ancient tribal songs, perform the riguals and listen to the chieftain speak in a foreign tongue.” So much of our Christian culture has become strange and incomprehensible and therefore a stumbling block to discovering Christ. We can no longer satnd within teh sphere of our own Christian culture and call them to join us.
Yet, the harvest is still plentiful and the call to “seek and save the lost” still as urgent. But, in order to reach our neighbors for Christ, we must learn to overcome the confines of our culture and reach into the culture of the world, just as Jesus did when He became man. We must learn a new paradigm.

From “Christ & Culture” by Mario M. Schalesky, The Lutheran Journal


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