How does God want us to live in society? Should we step back and live apart? Do we draw close and mimic societies so we can tell them about Christ? Or do we live to transform the world? We are called to be “salt and light” in the world but there are many different opinions on how we live that out.
Below is a quick interview of Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He has great points that challenge us to influence society.
I’d love to hear what you think about it. Let’s get the conversation started on this vital topic. Please use the comments for your thoughts.
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Submitted by Cedar Grove, 9:55 am
Our small group has been studying 1 John. 2:6 says, “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” 3:18 says, “…let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” To me, that’s a clear call to be influencers for Christ through love.
I really liked the way he talked about culture and how we are to affect it.
Living up stream to affect many down stream.
That the heart needs to be changed so that the life is changed so that culture can be changed.
The question I have is HOW do we do that?
I have lived so long in the sanctuary that I have no up stream contacts and don’t know how to get there.
Mark points out, and I agree, that “The Church” has gotten really good at creating our own version of culture, but not so good at effecting our culture.
Think about it, we have “Christian” versions of everything. “Christian Novels”, “Christian Movies”, “Christian Schools”, etc. It isn’t that these things are necessarily bad, but why the need to distinguish? Why the need to isolate? Can’t we just create novels, movies, entertainment and education that brings Glory to God and that shows Truth without the labels? Are we separating to protect ourselves rather than to effect culture?
@Carolyn
In some sense the web has provided us a great outlet to effect culture upstream without having to know anyone. This very blog can be a great opportunity to talk about Life through a Christian world view. I believe that is also living life upstream.
The idea of upstream living is evident in many places in the bible. But, how do we get upstream? We can be good at knowing scripture, living a life free of sin, being nice to our neighbors, attending church each Sunday, etc., but still not get very far upstream. Even our Christian politicians fail at this. We need God’s help in doing this. Prayer and fasting may be a good start, but we need more. The question is how do we get there?
Don Bird
It does seem ideal to be able to affect culture upstream to downstream as he says. Nonetheless, I agree it is not easy to do this. As christians seem to be marginalized in our culture when one tries to influence it in a christian way. I would think that a christian trying to open his path upstream, lets say in the movie or music industry would have a difficult time getting high enough up the stream to be able to impact the downstream people. They would most likely face pressures to compromise their values and what they stand for in order to get there. There needs to be a way of getting there without falling into the status quo in these industries while getting there. That is my opinion.