Being the Church in the Emerging Culture

Church Planting: Brad Brisco
Saturday, January 1, 2005

Lately I have been involved in several discussions on how to relate to the postmodern, or emerging, culture in which we live. There is little doubt that our culture has changed dramatically in the past decade. But while the cultural shift is easy to recognize, the difficult aspect of this change is determining how the church is to respond. In a new book by the Church Planting Group of the North American Mission Board, Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia Church in Houston and author of the chapter entitled "Starting Churches in the Postmodern Community" gives us a great picture of what it might look like.

"Our mission is to live in emerging culture, seeking to understand and transform it. Author Hans Kung alludes to two fatal flaws the church can make as we engage culture: (1) become sectarian by pulling away from the world, and in its isolation lose any effectiveness in changing the world, or (2) fall into syncretism by combining Scripture and the truth of who God is with culture until they are so intertwined that we can no longer tell them apart.

We walk a fine line. It is our missionary dilemma. We can easily fall off on either side. This is why church planting is not about models but instead about missions. Missions is always unique to one’s own context. It means we must live in a specific place knowing and loving the people to whom we are called. There are no shortcuts to the kind of intimate relationships that come as people share food and drink together.

Daniel is a perfect picture of how to live immersed in an unbelieving culture and yet stand for truth. Young Daniel was a 4.0 student in the school of Babylon. He was 10 times wiser in the subjects of sorcery, astrology, and cultic ritual than the sages who taught him. Daniel even took the Babylonian name Belteshazzar; yet he refused to defile the Most High God by eating unclean food, bowing to idols, or ceasing his times of prayer. Completely familiar with the pagan teachings of his culture, Daniel still discerned truth through Scripture amid pagan teaching.

As postmodern missionaries, we must push beyond our logical, Western boundaries into a new place of mystery and wonder. It is our history with its Eastern roots what will carry us there. We no longer can safely divide the world into things that are sacred or things that are secular. We can’t say, 'This is sacred, so it's safe and it's okay; this is secular, so it's not.' That kind of assumption is based on our modern, Western version of Christianity. We must look at things in terms of what can be redeemed and what cannot be redeemed."

If you want to respond to Pastor Seay's comments or dialogue further on the postmodern challenge, please contact me.