People Living On Mission

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer post:  Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission, Part Eight: Cultural Relevance and Living Sent

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A missional church with a Great Commission passion will care about relevance--making the message clear. Cultural awareness, relevance, and engagement are an important element of missional theology and being on mission yet these are not the only elements.  Our churches are to be biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and counter-cultural communities. Being biblically faithful is possible without being culturally relevant or counter-cultural communities. Being biblically faithful and counter-cultural is also possible. But to be true to all three elements is challenging. Part of our task of being missional is to be all three. Being missional means we live, act, and think like a people living on mission.

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Paul's imagery is that we represent a sovereign king from another kingdom. When you plant or develop your church--whether in Mississippi or Manhattan or Madrid--you are establishing an embassy whose purpose is to propagate the good news of the King from another kingdom. This is what it means to live sent. This does not simply mean we go for the good of the city, though it does include good for the city. This does not simply mean loving the poor, though it does include love for the poor. We go for what missiologists call a "transforming mission."  Sometimes we say that sharing Christ through planting churches and serving the community are two sides to the same coin. But this is a bad metaphor because it implies that those two sides have to be flipped one to the other. The mission is not two things; it is one thing. A "transforming mission" changes us and people far from God because we live sent.

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Paul said, "We are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God'" (2 Cor. 5:20). When you lead a church, recognize that the church must be three things: biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and a counter-culture community. Put the gospel, the authority of Scripture, and the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the center of all you do.

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To engage culture with a biblically faithful message, we also need to culturally relevant strategies. Again, fundamental to the nature of the gospel is the proclamation of the gospel. But even further, fundamental to the proclamation of the gospel is being sent to people--and that means we must understand those people. Cultural relevance is understanding and communicating with the people God has sent you to reach.  People are afraid of that term because it seems to be a compromise.  It need not be.

Cool and trendy does not necessarily mean culturally relevant because the definition changes from community to community across America. It changes even more dramatically across cultures. I would encourage you to be a church that seeks out those who are far from an understanding of the gospel and make the gospel comprehensible to them.  Everyone who interacts with your church ought to understand what is going on while he or she is there. That is what being culturally relevant means. It is an issue of communication, making sure church forms, style, and method support and aid gospel proclamation. One important focus of being culturally relevant is to create an environment where people are comfortable, at ease and their defenses are disarmed, so they can receive the message of the gospel.

You cannot always be sensitive. The gospel is not sensitive to the conscience or practices of the lost. The cross is scandalous and causes people to stumble across it. It is supposed to offend the sinner, pierce their conscience, and convict their soul. But the church should never create an environment, systems, or rules that cause people to stumble before they even get to the cross. Instead, as ambassadors, we should speak winsomely and act graciously toward those in need of our King's message.

Your church must be biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and finally a counter-culture community. Tim Keller talks about being "counter-intuitive." He explains we are to do those things in the name of Jesus Christ that might surprise, transform, and be salt and light in a community. The purpose is that the name and fame of Christ might be more widely known.

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