Defining the Context::

1. Defining the Context::

2. When we say “Culture,” what do we mean?:: • The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. • The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.

3. Is culture good or bad?:: • Depends- walking along, come to an incline/decline…often good or bad is situational. • It just is- it may be harder soil for the Gospel, or it may be easier soil for the Gospel. … And sometimes, what may seem hard, is actually fertile…

4. What happens when we label huge swaths of culture as “bad?”:: • We end up declaring things unredeemable, unusable (movie theaters, rock music, the web, etc) • We need to think less in terms of sacred and secular so much as “redeemed” and “not yet redeemed,”… reached and not yet reached.

5. Evaluate this statement: “If we just preach the Gospel… we’ll win the West, people will come to Christ, etc.”::

6. Is there any such thing as a Gospel without culture?:: • “We must start with the basic fact that there is no such thing as a pure Gospel if by that is meant something which is not embodied in a culture… every interpretation of the Gospel is embodied in some cultural form.” Lesslie Newbingen, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

7. Is there any such thing as a Gospel without culture?:: • The Gospel is understood incarnationally. In a sense, it must always wear the clothes of culture- because it is presented by people who are inculturated, to people who are inculturated through the medium of culture.

8. What kinds of training do people going to different people groups receive?:: • Attractional vs. Incarnational • The incarnational, missional church understands its mission, understands its fundamental identity as sent, and does its best to understand those to whom it is sent.

9. The shorthand for this process of clothing the Gospel is Contextualization

10. Frost/Hirsch pg 80

11. What is contextualization?:: • Contextualization is the dynamic process whereby the constant message of the Gospel interacts with specific, relative human situations. • “Contextualization is when the Gospel presented and the response called for, offends for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones.” -Rene’ Padilla

12. What Contextualization is NOT:: • Not a cosmetic reworking of our programs

13. a couple more thoughts on “Why contextualize?”:: • Because Christ did it • The early Church did it • Because it’s absolutely necessary

14. Reaching vs. Going • “Reaching” people is the wrong question. Reaching is not a Christ-ordained strategy. Going is. • And to go you need a route- a redemptive window where the Gospel can find entre’. And you need to know the lay of the land and approach the culture not as an outsider who comes to judge…

15. Some questions to think about :: • If you could do it all again from scratch, would you do it the same way? • Then why are you doing it that way now? • Is that leadership- or is it capitulation?

16. Hour Two: The Context:: • What is postmodernity? • Postmodernity is: what comes after the cult of science. When we all stop thinking like engineers, scientists and mathematicians

17. Why is this important?:: • “In the face of this changing western culture, many western church leaders are in denial; they plan and do church as though next year will be 1957.” - George Hunter III

18. Postmodern- Early 1900’s- Pragmatic Evangelicals/ emerging church Medieval 500-1500 fall of Rome Roman Cathol. Modern-1500-1900’s Renaissance/ Reformation Mainline protestantism Most eras/movements begin as a reaction to something else.

19. We need to minister to the world we have, not the world that we wish to have:: • Christianity is still trying to decide how it will respond- Some want to fight the transition, some want to embrace it, some have yet to acknowledge that it even exists • 2 types of postmodernity- scholarly and “man-on-the-street”- Erickson calls “hard” or “soft” postmodernism

20. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Science Intuition/revelation

21. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Objectivity Subjectivity

22. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Naturalism Supernaturalism

23. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Evolution Creation

24. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Individualism/Communism Communalism/Individualism

25. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Heirarchy/Authoritarianism Anti-authoritarianism

26. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Arrogance Humility

27. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Rigid Flexible

28. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Reductionistic Holistic

29. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Conquest Cooperative

30. “Which direction is culture moving?”:: Believer Seeker

31. The Problem:: • Because our protestant/evangelical tradition was birthed in and through modernism, we have a strong affinity to modernity- and we tend to see postmodernity as an attack on Christianity itself. • Among the challenges of postmodernity, there are many opportunities-