Leading with Hope Amidst a Changing World
Earlier this month, at a Siburt event in Houston, I was talking with two elders about the situation they’re facing in their church. Over the last 25 years, the racial/ethnic makeup of their town has changed, and while this change has created new opportunities for outreach, it has also created concern. In this case, it’s not so much that their congregation changed, but rather that their world changed around them. And so, they’re asking the kinds of questions that leaders typically do in these kinds of situations:
How do we respond when we realize the world is changing around us? How do we do good ministry when we’re struggling to communicate the gospel in this new situation?
It’s not hard to find biblical examples of culture change. Whether it’s the rise of the new pharaoh who “knew not Joseph” (Exod. 1:8, KJV), the regime change from the Babylonians to the Persians during the Jews’ exile (compare 2 Kings 25 with Ezra 1), or the pressures of Greco-Roman religion on Israel’s monotheism (as in Acts 14), God’s people have regularly had to deal with these kinds of challenges. Incidentally, another example comes from the so-called “apocryphal” books of 1 and 2 Maccabees, where we see the challenges the Jews faced under some of the Seleucid kings who followed Alexander the Great – a situation which may also inform the final version of the book of Daniel that we have in our own Bibles.
However, what’s different from our world is that, in each of these cases, God’s people were not in power, but instead were subordinate in terms of culture. As a result, the answer was generally the same: keep worshiping God and not the other gods, and stay faithful to God’s commands even if it puts you in danger. It’s what the Israelite midwives did in Egypt; it’s what Daniel and his friends did in Babylon; and it’s what the Pharisees were trying to do during the time of Jesus.
But what about when God’s people are in charge or are culturally dominant? What about in today’s church, when (just to be quite specific regarding a common situation in Texas) the elders and ministers in a church tend to be white males, but their hometown is becoming increasingly African-American, Hispanic, or ethnically mixed? The answer can’t just be “hold on” because leaders need to be bold and proactive.
Historians have noted that Christians often turn to a few common strategies in dealing with culture change:
Rescue: Sometimes Christians see the world as going downhill or drifting away, and so their goal is sometimes to rescue the wayward or declining culture. In our day, that might mean hand-wringing over the changing makeup of the city council or school board, a desperate door-knocking campaign to make sure people “have a chance to learn about Jesus,” or a public boycott of a company or media product.
Reclamation: Other Christians tend to think that the problem with the present is that things were uniformly better “back then,” in some period in the past. So, they will look back longingly to a “golden age” when things were preferable or safer. In the Churches of Christ, we can do this with the New Testament period, just like many Americans from many backgrounds look back to the 1950s. The goal here is usually to reclaim that golden age in some way, whether by sticking with hymn books as opposed to screens, using old-fashioned preaching methods because they were “more effective,” or continuing to harp on ethical questions from past decades when most of the world has moved on.
Relevance: This third move is less pessimistic about the present, as it instead views the problem as one of outside perception. If a church can only help people see that Christianity is still relevant, then the people will stream in and get involved. Thus, some churches go the opposite direction as in #2, seeking to communicate with the culture on its own terms, doing as many “contemporary” things as possible so that they are seen as relevant, important, or desirable.
Each of these strategies is understandable, but each has its own weaknesses.[1] But the biggest weakness for each of them is the way we talk about them. How many times have you heard someone say, or have you thought to yourself, “If we can just __________, then that will take care of everything”? It’s the search for the silver bullet that hamstrings us so often. Culture is complicated, and church is complicated. Just as church growth and success are rarely attributable to one single factor, so the answers to church struggle or tensions with culture are rarely singular.
So, what ought we do instead? It is true that our movement has always valued Scripture as being “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16, NIV), and the Scriptural examples I cited above are helpful here. We know that “the world” can be an enemy to us (see, for example, chapters 14-16 of John), and so we will always need to recognize situations where we need to hold on, be faithful, and separate ourselves from the world. In other words, we can’t assume that relevance solves our problems – we might have to be willing to be “different.”
On the other hand, we also know that Jesus came to save the world (John 3:17), and so we can’t dismiss the present world and the people in it in favor of some lost “golden age.” The past is the past, and we have to deal with the present. We have to deal with the realities around us on their own terms. As Charlie Siburt used to say, “Reality is your friend.”
And finally, we must remember that all those people “out there” in the strange world around us are made in the image of God. Yes, they are fallen, broken like we are, but they are also people whom God made, loves, and sustains. As a result, our work isn’t just about rescue but also about participating in the work of restoration and redemption.
How do we bring these together? It’s going to depend on where you are. But more importantly, it’s going to depend on God’s help. We worship and serve a Lord who loves you and who loves your city. God is already on mission, already at work in the world, and you get the opportunity to join in that work. My encouragement to you is to ask for wisdom every day (James 1:3), at every staff meeting, in every elders’ meeting, so that you can discern well what your next steps should be. Depend on the Holy Spirit, the active working of God in the world, and seek the Spirit’s guidance at every turn.
This strategy will not answer all your questions, and it will not give you that silver bullet. But it will remind you that you are not alone, that you and God are in this together, and it will build you up in hope. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5, RSV).
Blessings to you as you walk and lead in hope,
David
