How we Transform our Church Culture

(this was a sermon i preached a few Sunday's ago. I'm not completely satisfied but hey, we are supposed to improve from time to time. This was not what i said word for word from the pulpit but this is somewhat a summary. )

Introduction

There are disturbing similarities of the cinema/Cineplex and the church. I remember while watching the movie, everyone in the Cineplex was engaged with the giant screen up in front. Engaged in a sense, when there was a joke people would laugh kind of thing. The crowd was also engaged when there were glitches when the movie was played. Everyone seemed to be engaged for as long as the movie played. And when it was finished everyone rushed back for the fact that we were strangers. We were engaged at one point but were back to normal after that. I feel like it is church all over again. Sometimes I think that kind of thing is not what the church is supposed to be; just a service, just some place we go to on a Sunday morning, just a religious experience.
And that is a way of life that the church in modern times acts. I call this culture. Culture is in a nutshell- a way of life. The church has adopted the cinema’s way of life, that we are mere strangers seeking for the same thing: God. The church has, because of this, lost a very vital thing in the process.
Now a while back pastor talked about transitioning a church culture .It is something that we as a church are somehow working towards. Because we often get preoccupied with the big stuff, all too often, we get lost in the maze of actually doing things that reflect the transition. Today I will talk about how we how we start to change the culture; being cultural creators.
But before we can be people who create culture- what we do in transitioning a church culture we have some sort of model to follow. In this case we look to the one who change a culture- Jesus in the gospels.

The core of Jesus’ vision (what motivated him to change the culture around him)

If we want to know what brought about Jesus’ strong conviction of his mission (how he changed the culture), in reforming Israel (calling them to repentance and follow him), we have to somehow grasp the core of what spurred Jesus to action.
I know we don’t have any particular creed that we ascribe to. ‘Creed’ actually means belief or a set of beliefs. Israel had a creed. It was called the ‘shema’- meaning ‘hear’ (found in Dt 6:4-9) This was a creed that pious Jews repeated twice daily. Some added Dt 11:13-21 & Num 15:37-41. In fact this was the first prayer that young Jewish children were taught to recite and Jesus was no exception to that. There was one rabbi who said that anyone who does not recite this creed twice daily was considered to be those careless people of the land. So for the Jew the ‘shema’ or ‘creed’ was very an important aspect of Jewish life. It was the thing that formed their life through and through.
We might be asking “What is Jesus’ take on this ‘shema’ thing?” Well let’s see by looking at Mark 12:28-33 where Jesus was confronted with a question regarding his understanding on what is the most ultimate commandment of all.
Here we find the ‘shema’ but Jesus adds to the ’shema’. The thing that Jesus added was not something people put to be remembered or recited. According to Jesus there was another thing important when people are devoted to God, which is to love others as well. Jesus’ revision of the ‘shema’ he put loving God and loving people as priority.
This was the creed that Jesus lived by and the core that brought out to change the culture around him.

The story of Jesus and his take on cultural transformation in the form of a fellowship meal

Let us reflect on one of the aspects in Jesus messing around with the present culture of his day. That reflection takes us to a scenario of dining, which is table fellowship.

Background of table fellowship

Among the religious elite during those days, food laws were a central symbol to the Jews.It was in table fellowship that lay, for Jews of those days, a certain vision of Israel. Now it was not enough for the food to be kosher (holy and acceptable) but the fellowship has to be with the right people as well. If you ate with the wrong kind of people, although the food that you ate was kosher (holy) you have defiled yourself, rendering everything unholy. For the Pharisees the “table became a wall between the observant and nonobservant”. It was a vision of “social respectability, religious uprightness, proper covenant behavior, loyalty to the traditions and hence to the aspirations of Israel”. This talks about identity. Basically we can say that the table and fellowship gave meanings of identity. Who was in and who was out.
We can say then that for the Pharisees purity was to mix among themselves and them alone. If others wanted to join them they had to abide by the same rules, otherwise your identity would always be those who we not Israel. This was one of the boundary markers- the table fellowship. To the Jews of the day to the table was a place where you had to be pure to participate in.

Jesus the radical (rascal for the Pharisees and other opposing parties)

Jesus actually posed very negative response from these pious Jews, religious leaders and the likes. What made Jesus a rascal was that he did not mind the company that came to sit and dine with him. This was the problem. (Mt 11:16- 11:19; Mk 2:14 -Mk 2:17)
Here was Jesus, shaped by his belief- Love God, love others, was changing the rules of cultural and social acceptability, thus changing the vision of Israel that the Pharisees had.
Theirs was you had to be pure; Jesus’ was there is purity for those who come and accept.
Theirs looked at your social standing; Jesus’ was one that said everyone was welcomed. Theirs was just to maintain tradition, Jesus’ was that of mission and agenda- there was a purpose. Theirs were mechanical; Jesus’ table fellowship gave life.
I guess when we look at Jesus’ table there was an air of acceptance, of hope, of healing, of joy, of expectation. Jesus didn’t seem to mind the kind of people he was dining with. To him it was not an issue. His issue was to seek and save the lost, to heal the sinner-thus transforming them to follow in his mission. Just check out this story: Lk 19:1 - Lk 19:10
The meal now for Jesus instilled a different meaning altogether. A new kind of Israel. It became a table that heals because those who come to it have the chance to be pure, where sinners found grace and change; a table that envisions because Jesus showed them what Israel was supposed to be as a nation- a boundary breaker and grace giver, thus transforming the person; a table that hopes because it gives a kind of foretaste of what Jesus kingdom will be like for those who follow him. This was one aspect of how Jesus’ life transformed culture around him.

Lessons for us

The lesson for us is simple. Bringing about change to an age old structure spells difficulty. Because of this we will often succumb to the grandness of transforming a church culture. But as we find in Jesus, his vision of transforming the stiff and legalized culture of Israel started in the form of a creed. Thus for us to change the bigger picture we must remember that it stars with us first- in us. And as we slowly believe it and act it out, it will eventually affect everything. To affect big things we have to start small- transforming our church culture starts with us, all of us- Love God, love neighbor.

'Christianity in a Box and Getting Out'

Here's a sermon i preached, my first one preaching on a sunday in my church! 'Enjoy'.

Christianity in a Box and Getting Out

The struggle that we constantly face as Christians is whether we follow the rules of this world or we follow the rules of Jesus. This is purely evident when we are in a struggle to live out our faith in the world. The common tendency for us is living below par of how we should live as Christians. This is because we are constantly subscribing to the way the world wants us to live our Christian faith.

Subscribing the World’s way of being Christian

This is what I would call being Christians in a box. How does this happen?

Compartmentalization
By way of Religion. Religion is one of the facets of life jumbled up with other avenues of life- personal life, working life, family life, hobby life and religious life is one of them. So there are neat spheres where we divide these things up, and they cannot mix. What do we do here? We leave the faith life behind when we go through the avenues or spheres of life. So in that sense faith becomes something that we wear. When we move to the religious sphere, we wear the box- being Christian! This is what we can understand as compartmentalizing. We have neat spheres of life that have no consistency, where we constantly have to wear masks, where our faith is worn at certain time and taken off at certain times.

Confinement
The tendency of confinement is, we are quite particular with practices that show that we are Christians. We say that it only in these practices we are Christian (Go to church, pray, sing p&w songs, attend Christian meetings)
These two tendencies tend to spell out a Christianity that has an escape view mentality which other religions have. Like the box Christianity, we escape life to be really Christians- we go to church- doing Christian things. Another expression that we can plum together with all that is the tendency of being disengaged- with living life. When we escape life we tend to be disengaged with life. We find no connection with faith when we are outside. The God of this world will be pretty happy when we subscribe with this way of being Christian, there will be no way that transformation to be evident. Do we really want to subscribe to this?

Subscribing to the Jesus way- how it is meant to be

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Message version- the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood)
There are three expressions that we can mention when we read this-
Embrace.
Jesus embraced his surroundings and limitations when he came on earth. In other words Jesus accepted where he was put and it was there that he would be God’s representative.
Identification,
Jesus was totally identified with his new living condition- as a man- flesh and blood- being mortal. Sometimes as Christians we tend to be super-spiritual beings, like people so out of this world.(Phil 2:6-8)
Dwell
As if embrace and identification are already complete in Jesus’ incarnation- to round it up after all that Jesus has to dwell with man. He lived in their living conditions and he lived with them.

Engagement
If anything these expressions spell an emphatic picture of engagement. Jesus was fully engaged with life, in its totality. If the gospel of John tells us rightly (and it does) God sent Jesus and in the same manner Jesus sends us into the world to embody the life of Jesus. Being in the middle of things to change or transform something we have to be in the middle of things and be agents of change from within. Jesus gives us some examples of how he wants us to be- being salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), and being his witnesses (Acts 1:8).
All these word pictures communicate to us that we are called to go out, being engaged in the world and becoming change agents from the inside out. Just like Jesus, he brought change coming in our world as one of us, and so he is our example. He sends us in the same manner, into the world, engaged with it and becoming agents of change.

ACTS 2:41-47

ACTS 2

41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church—about three thousand in all. 42 They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord’s Supper and in prayer.
The Believers Meet Together
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1996.

This is one of the most powerful verses or passage that can be found in the bible. (well also the whole bible that is). There is such a strong sense of bonding embedded inside the very core of the passage. Pastor Winston was preaching and was focusing on the topic: A year of Building. He stressed 5 points with the emphasis pointing on building, hence

1. Building bible centered people
2. Building a praying people
3. Building a caring community
4. Building a worshipful people
5. Building an increasing membership

Good points i should say, and definitely in line with the vision of my Church. The challenge of course will be how are we going to achieve these points above? They look so good that we cant even picture what they look like. Like the first point, "how do we build bible centered people?". It is easier said than done.

This is the challenge that we all have after hearing the word preached. How do we apply what we have heard and not stop at "what a good sermon" and then relax ourselves on our Sunday couches and doze off to sleep?