Ten Things I Think About Christians Engaging the Culture for God's Glory
A manifesto for The Beauty Chasers
1 - I think we should stop using phrases like “engaging culture.”
a. The idea of “engaging culture” is dead to me. In the first place, to say we must “engage” presupposses that we live disengaged lives. I think this comes from a view—a quite outdated view—that most Christians are sitting around waiting for the rapture and not living their best lives now.
This is silly. Most Christians just want to know how to live life, period. When we use phrases like “engaging culture” we create an instant dichotomy. As if the Christian person is not part of the culture in which they live.
b. When we tell people they need to engage the culture with their faith, it yokes them to an idea that they need to be out there “doing” something that is significant.
“Eh, but Tim,” you say. “No it doesn’t. It …”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “Let me cut you off right there. And please excuse the interruption. It’s just that I’m so passionate about this subject. :) But for years living in Atlanta, Georgia I heard “influencers” and leaders telling me to engage culture, and then all the conferences paraded around there entrepreneurs who were out there doing incredible things—engaging culture.
“The implication of such rhetoric is that engaging culture equals doing these big idea type of things. I understand this is not intended, but it’s a consequence of the rhetoric nonetheless. And I’ve spoken with many people over the years who were hobbled in their thinking by this very thing.”
c. Perhaps the best thing to do is to actually do a deep dive into what culture actually is, rather than just throwing blanket statements out there that few people understand.
I once heard a popular Christian speak on the subject of culture give a very general definition of the world on purpose, saying that “culture” was so heavy-laden with meaning that he didn’t want to go into all the nuance.
As Christians, we should embrace the nuance. To do otherwise is to adopt the bumper-sticker theology of our times and to encourage shallow thinking and mindless following of the trendy ideas.
2 - I think the idea of “engaging culture” is confusing because the Church has passed off disciple making to trendy theology.
A person, any person, engages culture simply by waking up and living. Unless you are a recluse living up in the mountains, you are part of American (or where you live internationally) culture.
a. You and I take part in our culture by consuming: food, information, entertainment, and so on. We live in a consumer-driven economy. Consumption marks almost every facet of life.
In fact, the consumer ideology has infiltrated the Church so much so that we think the methods used today are just “how it is.”
b. But Church methodology today is based on organizational business models. Efficiency and pragmatism rule our thinking on “how we do church.” This mentality filters down into how we conduct our gatherings and the technologies we use.
Imagine a church that was completely analog—no tech. What would happen? Would we even know how to connect with one another without the buffer of a stage, lighting, and glamor concert screens?
c. The way we “do” church is a type of theology. So we must ask ourselves, on what is our theology based? Do we do church in order to draw people to gathering spaces? If so, this is not church. This is a kind of evangelization meeting.
The church gathering is about worshipping God and the equipping of the saints. Period.
This is not engaging culture. It’s assimilation. The Church offers the world a mall experience when what they desire is intimacy with God.
d. What if the church taught how culture was simply about the connections of humans with one another? What if the church taught that living in a town, city, or suburb was all culture? And to live within those confines was being part of the culture.
What if the church taught that the family was epicent of any culture and has been for thousands of years? If that’s true, and it is, then having a family is central to “engaging culture.”
3 - I think discipleship gives the grounding needed to understand our place in this world. (Thank you, Michael W. Smith:)
Discipleship teaches the “way” of Jesus. When Jesus walked the earth, he lived and worked as a stone mason (carpenter). He began his ministry when he was thirty years old. The first thing he did, after being baptized and tempted in the wilderness, was choose his disciples—a ragged bunch of rufians and cultural castaways. He didn’t show them how to “engage culture.” He taught them his way. Which was decidedly counter-cultural.
He taught them how to pray.
He taught them who he was and what it meant to follow him.
He taught them how to love each other.
He taught them about another kingdom—a spiritual reality.
He taught them how to die.
4 - I think we need to return to a way of seeing the world that focuses, first, on the wonder of God.
For months now, I’ve been talking about my new book, The Beauty Chasers: Recapturing the Wonder of the Divine and how I believe we need to live as beauty chasers in the world.
Chasing beauty is a way of life. And it’s a way of life that focuses on God first. If we can, for one moment, step out of the crazy pace of this world, and behold God in his wonderful creation, then I we can reconnect with the gift of his love for us.
The created order is a gfit from the Creator himself. Theologians for centuries have observed the created world and described it as God’s smiling face towards us or God’s reaching hand. Why would God be reaching out to us through creation?
Because he loves us and wants to woo us with beauty. Because he wants to teach us through the wonder of created things that he is the one who holds all together with his word. He’s the one who created it for us and for his glory.
When we rip ourselves away from the isolation that grips this world, we see again the wonder of God and the many ways he loves us.
5 - I think we should live as an afront to the world.
“Jesus Christ did not say, ‘Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.’ The Gospel is something completely different. In fact, it is directly opposed to the world.”
—C.S. Lewis
Lewis said this in an interview just before his death in 1963. The question was: "Do you feel, then, that modern culture is being de-Christianized?"
Do I mean we should be jerks and weirdos. Absolutly not. But assimilation to the culture is the wrong way to look at what it means to “engage culture.”
6 - I think we can live as an incongruent people and still be a light on the hill.
An incongruent people is exactly how I frame what it means to chase beauty as a Christian in this world. Being a beauty chaser, to me, is living counter to the culture. The culture says shout your pain. The beauty chasers takes time to listen. The world says get all that you can. The beauty chasers finds a way to serve and give up things for the good of others.
We must be brave enough to risk irrelevance in this world to make a difference. The world does not want the same old thing. The world wants to hope again. And hope comes from the far side of the mountain. From the pioneers out there cutting the path to heaven.
7 - I think I like the idea of being a disciple of the Wonder-full.
By this I mean that we live as disciples of The Way. That we live caught up in the wonder of God.
What does this look like? I looks like a people caught up in worship. And not the smoke machine worship of the modern church. No! The worship of a life lived to the glory of God. A life lived each day hungering and thirsting for God—to remain, to abide in Him.
8 - I think we need to re-ignite the Christian imagination with beauty.
We need dreamers and cultural frontier people who are willing to live with the courage to not settle for the status quo. We need people following after a vision of God that does not look or sound like bottomline thinking or pragmatism. We need pastors brave enough to build new cathedrals. We need artists courageous enough to say, “Beauty is my goal, not popularity.”
We don’t need to copy The Inklings. We need to take their advice and get to work with the tasks God’s given us. We need to stop copying others and be the beautiful individuals God created us to be, for his glory.
9 - I think Beauty can change your life if you let it.
What do I mean by this? It’s the basis of my whole book. When you pre-order it, you join our band of Beauty Chasers. I don’t view this book as a one-off; just another book that will fade until the next one comes along. It’s my manifesto on living life as a disciple of our Wonder-full Creator—Beauty itself.
This is why, if we slow down and look around this beautiful world of ours, we can discover a new way of living and being in this world.
10 - I think Joy marks the Christian—and Joy comes from the miracle of salvation.
I’ve been reading Mark and being quiet lately. And in my reading, I found the joy of my salvation ignited as I realized that Jesus, when he healed the leper out in the wilderness was really healing me.
That when he told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven, he was telling me, I’ve made you whole.
My sin, so dark and binding, kept me in a wilderness of guilt and anguish. I’ve read about the “joy of salvation” all my life. But for some reason reading those stories hit me so hard. I saw myself as the one needing cleansed. The emphasis wasn’t the sin itself per se, it was the willingness of Jesus to reach out his hand to touch me. It was him seeing my faith and rewarding it with the best thing he could do—forgive me.
C.S. Lewis and William Wordsworth believed joy was a by-product of our encounters of beauty.
I believe this too.
If God is Beauty itself, then when we live our lives in Joy. Joy as response to the beauty of God and his unfathomable grace and forgiveness.
Engaging in culture is not about necessarily creating something spectacular or doing social justice or doing. God created you and I to love him and enjoy him forever. To do this it takes a daily dive into the love of a God who created a universe so beauty-full so as to remind us of how immeasurably he loves us.
Give yourself permission today to live. To breathe in each moment of your work day. To struggle to find the joy you know is there but in this season of heartache, it’s hard to find.
Give yourself permission to put one foot in front of the other and live each moment as an offering to him. You don’t have to be perfect or have some great idea that will change the world. You can change the world by simply following God each day.
I’m proud to offer this new book of mine to all of you. Why? Because I wrote it for you—that you’d would find encouragement and inspiration to live like Beauty matters … to live like God loves you.
Today's the day! I'm so excited to be reading your book soon. Reading your words is always like water to a parched soul.
Great stuff Tim. This is fantastic