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Ministry
in an “Un-Christian” Culture
According to David Kinnaman’s new book “Un-Christian,” Evangelical Christianity has a serious image problem. In fact, the term Christian
today brings up all manner of bad feelings for people. Particularly for
young people who do not have a hi In short, “Christians” are now perceived more for what we are against than what we are for. Pretty scary isn’t it? I highly recommend that you read this book if you haven’t already. In it, we learn how out-of-date traditional Christianity is with the “Busters and Mosaics”, people age 16 to 29. What took our “elders” (people age 61+ in 2007) a lifetime to build, has fallen to low levels of respect and is viewed as political activism, socially irrelevant, and uncaring by the children of the Baby Boomer generation. The effect is that many who look at your ministry today have no connection with the Christ you serve, see Him as uncaring, and see you as “old-school” and out of touch. Add to that a new article by D Michael Lindsey of Rice University, (USA Today, 02/11/08) which points to another major problem. Wealthy Christians in the corporate, government, and entertainment fields are disconnecting from the local church in staggering numbers. Dr. Lindsay’s article highlights several well known Christians who have chosen a “members only” approach to learning about their faith and living it out. This leads many “generous givers” to attend private events at exclusive resorts to learn about giving opportunities – cutting themselves off from the very people they choose to fund. Okay, that’s a problem for the church to address – right? Yes, but if you’ll remember, most Christian ministries are run by those same people – doing things the same way they did in 1982. I’ll make this point again. We are 90% of the way through the first decade of the 21st century, and all you have to do is watch television news for a few minutes or channel surf to notice that God is almost invisible (and his people are all idiots) to those audiences. So what can we do as ministry leaders to turn this around? It would be nice to launch a nationwide media campaign to get Christ back into the minds of the culture. Unfortunately one of the other things that Christians are also known for is their lack of “unity.” We’d never agree on the final script for the ads. No, the answer needs to come from each one of us – individually. We must recognize what is missing in our presentation. We need to highlight the blessings and benefits are of being saved from (oh yeah) Hell.
For our ministry message to begin the shift back to being relevant, we need to highlight actual lives that are changed. Never understate the work of Christ in the transformation process, but get their attention with stories of Bob and Sally whose lives were a wreck when you first encountered them. Focus on the individual, and let God be seen in action through you. Yes, true Evangelical Christianity is the only way to get to heaven. Yes, people are lost without Christ and need to be saved. Yes, the Word of God can stand on its own two feet. No, it isn’t hopeless. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To purchase copies of “Un-Christian” http://www.unchristian.com/ For a copy of Dr. Lindsay’s Article http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/02/a-gated-communi.html
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storically
based “biblical world view.”