The culture trap occurs when the general church culture reluctantly concurs with a new direction or desired outcome but every remaining value, assumption, activity and verbal clue indicates that the people are generally not on-board.
For example, the pastor may express a heart for the broken, the damaged and the lost and articulate a strong desire for the church to become more welcoming, to become more evangelistic and more inclusive.
These desires, even if presented well with good Biblical examples may be ether embraced or rebuffed by the local culture.
Changing the culture requires two important elements.
The first is that the leadership of the church must define and introduce new appropriate language. Words tend to lose their original meaning over time and a new language often needs to be introduced to convey a more appropriate or contemporary meaning.
Over the years, the word “stewardship” has lost its original meaning and today typically is associated with capital campaigns or the annual sermon series on giving in the local church. In the same way, the word “Worship” has lost much of its inclusion of prayer, exaltation and private veneration and is now typically defined by the 30 minute music segment that precedes the sermon.
New words are needed to convey new ways of doing ministry which is why we hear words like “missional”, “mentor”, “growth groups”, and “catalysts” in many of our growing churches.
What is the second necessary element to avoid the Culture Trap? Read part three of the Culture Trap, Monday, March 22.
