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This article is from Youthworker
journal May/June 2005
Culture Isn't the Problem; We Are
by Andy Harrington
As some guy called Dylan once said, "The times they are a
changin'." It's true. We're living in a time of enormous
socio-cultural confusion that's happening at a level we often
only dimly perceive, but that affects our lives in the most
dramatic ways imaginable. And that change is happening fast.
In this new era, we're finding that we don't have all the
answers, that facts aren't everything, and that science won't
cure all ills and make the world a better place like previous
generations believed. As the recent U.S. election showed us,
there's a lack of belief on the part of the younger generation
in politicians and people who tell us their version of a truth
that can make the world a better place. Yet there was at least a
perceived belief that the Christians "won." So is it
any wonder that this culture is expressing a distrust of the
church and the people they find in it? And could it be that we
deserve it?
Perhaps we've treated the world with just an eensy weensy bit of
contempt in the last few decades and allowed it to pass us by. I
mean, we have evangelists on the TV, frothing at the mouth as
they tell those who are watching that they're going to hell
unless they follow them (and perhaps send a buck or two). We
have a church that appears divided and more in love with arguing
with itself than caring about what goes on outside its doors. We
talk about unity, but we have more splits than a banana at a
dessert factory—and we still haven't worked out that the Pope
isn't the antichrist; the guy who invented flat-pack furniture
is.
Perhaps we get too big for our boots sometimes. After all, for
many centuries, what the Christian Church said, went. It was the
ruler, arbitrator, and Supreme Court of Christendom. Trouble is,
Christendom died a few centuries ago, but nobody seems to have
told much of the church.
In his book Into the 21st Century, world-renowned theologian
Donald English writes, "The church which wishes to be ready
for the 21st century has got to face the awful reality that its
own unpopularity is used as a major excuse by those who say they
long for God but cannot find him." That makes me sick. We
have a world hungering for genuine spirituality, yet the one
place we tell them they could come and truly find it is the one
place they want to avoid like the plague! We've been acting as
though we have the answer to life, the universe, and everything;
but we've locked it in a box and left it gathering dust. And if
we expect people to unlock it based on watching how we do it, we
don't give them a chance; we seem to have forgotten the
combination. It's no wonder they don't trust us. For crying out
loud, many of us don't trust us!
Perhaps it would help if we started listening instead of
condemning, acting instead of speaking. To re-earn the trust of
a culture that we've been so clever in alienating, perhaps we
should stop shouting at them and telling them where they're
wrong and start acting with compassion and love. My son doesn't
trust me because I tell him he's a jerk all the time. He trusts
me because I'm there for him, and he knows I love him. Let's
stop speaking out of the sides of our mouths—acting like a
bunch of dualists who buy suits to fit the specific
occasion—and start to live real lives.
It's time to embrace this new culture. We need to get our hands
dirty, get involved in the world, care for those in situations
of oppression, and start working out that the truth does indeed
set you free—it doesn't tie you into a straitjacket of
conformity. We need to learn to celebrate our diversity, stop
all the pathetic pharisaic augments and start loving one
another. And here's a scary thought for all of us, across the
denominational and group boundaries: Maybe we aren't 100% right,
but God loves us anyway.
And people will listen, watch, and embrace us back. A friend and
I recently had the privilege of being the first westerners ever
to go into an isolated village in Ethiopia. Thousands of people
in the surrounding areas were suffering from a drought of
biblical proportions. The solution was to cap a spring on a
nearby mountain and get the water to the village. The cost:
phenomenal. Yet with the help of thousands of young people in
British Columbia, many of them completely unchurched, that
village now has clean, pure water. That one thing not only saved
countless lives, but it also did more to demonstrate the love of
Christ to a "show me, don't tell me" culture than all
the messages we could ever hope to preach. The kids heard it,
saw it, embraced it, and were changed by it.
The church that wants to move forward needs to stop asking the
question, "What form should our Sunday service take,"
and start asking, "How do we serve?" Let's forget
about transient programs and events that have to be trendy for a
moment and start concentrating on people. Trust is built by
making yourself vulnerable, by being there when you're needed,
by being loyal and servant-hearted. That's what Jesus was to the
world. Why do we think we could be any different?
The church exists to make the world more delicious, not to run
from its sourness. Too many of us grew up with a kind of bunker
mentality, firing the odd John 3:16 machine gun burst and
pretending we are "evangelising" that big, bad, dark
place out there. Perhaps instead of running from a world that
seems culturally alien to us, it's time we embraced it and loved
it in order to transform it. And to do that, we have to live in
it and be truth in it. Go on, I dare you. Break out of the
boundaries and boxes we've made for ourselves. I think we'll
find that God is outside the box waiting to give us a hand.
Andy Harrington is the executive director of Greater Vancouver
Youth for Christ where he leads a team of 70 youth workers in a
thinly disguised attempt to transform the world and the church
that’s at its heart.
Article used with permission
Clyde
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