Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Who's Culture Do I Select?

Alot of people, especially younger generation, are talking about being missional and reaching our culture. The terms seem to be tossed around like a beach ball in a hurricane. I fully support the idea behind being missional, in terms that we should seek ways to understand the culture around us to reach them. But my main question is this, "Given that we are in America, what does our culture look like and how do we define it?" Do we define culture as ethnic, specifically targeting to reach only Koreans or Hispanics? Do we define culture as common philosophies of life and life experiences?

Living in America we have a grand array of ethnicities, lifestyles, thought patters, philosophies, ways of life, etc. So by which do we define as our culture? Does the culture of Seattle differ from the culture of Oklahoma City? My concern is that if we attempt to only reach the "culture" of a certain type then it might be pretty easy to fall into the mentality of "us 4 and no more" that has plagued many Baptist churches in the past. If we seek to target only the Indie rockers and artsy type then there is a chance of an unwelcoming spirit to the cowboy who wonders in or the stock broker on Wall Street. I fear if we focus too much on reaching a certain type of "culture", whether ethnic or philosophical, we may run the horrible risk of excluding others around us because they are not within our "target culture".

My thought is that if we are to be the Church, we should have a varying mosaic of different cultures within our local congregations. In America we have a myriad of "cultures", however defined, all around us, especially in the cities. As a church we should not target a certain type of "culture" over another but understand the vastness of the ones around us and offer varying ministries within the church to reach them. I don't think the local church as a whole should target a specific "culture". If I target the Indie rocker then who is going to target the cowboy or the stock broker or the Hispanic or the Asian or the...you get the point. I don't want to leave it up to someone else to reach a certain "type of culture". I want to reach them all.

Am I alone in this thought or way off base?

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