Rick Warren on Culture
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I thought you might enjoy learning about Rick Warren’s thoughts on culture.
Do you think he is on target? Just click the link and you can watch as he talks about this important subject.
6 Comments so far
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the road ahead 
Overall pretty good! He hit on several areas, two I would like to draw out. Love and relationship. Couple thoughts on this, do we really know how to love, how to be in relationship?
Acts chapter 2, illustrates this very clearly, love and relationship. People had each others
backs. People who had needs, had these needs met. People sold, or gave of what they had to meet others needs. The Way, as it was known, was a culture that had love and relationship, and that reached out as a culture to the neighborhoods, cities, etc. Love and relationship was their passion. They would bare one another’s burdens (Gal. 6).
This, “Acts Culture,” reached out, reached in, reached around. They necessarily did not practice issues of tough love, boundaries, enablement, co-dependency, etc. If someone had a need they strove to meet it, without bias, without feeling or thinking God was putting them through something. There was accountability, but driven by the Holy Spirit, not in a political sense of nowadays. Nowadays churches offer help, but it is on a scale, you have to fill out forms, wait for man’s approval, etc.
When the church – universal gave up the James 2:26-27 mandate primarily to the government! And until the church can really recapture and get this back, culture will be a paradox, an ongoing paradigm. Historically, culture has ebbed and flowed.
Jesus’ way to address the culture was to go into a town, two by two. Share the gospel, and if not accepted, shake the dust and move on.
So what do we do as the church – universal? As Para-church organizations, as non-profits, as missionaries? If the love of Christ is not compelling us, have we lost our first love? Are we to caught up in doing, “ministry,” and not sharing, not relating, not being in relationship(s)? Has too many cooks, spoiled the kitchen?
Martha and Mary come to mind. Question, which person do you or I identify yourself with? Which person should we identify with?
Thanks!
Comment by David Brownlee May 18, 2009 @ 4:43 pmI love to listen to Rick Warren. I believe he is on target. It is about me and you living as it is about us living
Comment by Michael May 18, 2009 @ 8:27 pmHe is right on. It is about you (and me) living “Jesus Chrust incarnate in the world”. It is not easy, but it is God’s commandment.
Comment by Michael May 18, 2009 @ 8:29 pmThanks for sharing this. I’d like to push back a little on the principles of cultural engagement, although I do agree with the message of incarnation that pastor Warren speaks. He starts with the common statement “culture is going to burn up, but the church will last forever.” This is only partially true theologically if you look at 1 Cor. 3 and Isaiah 60. There is a strange sense in which God tells us that because of incarnational ability of the Spirit (what is known as Common Grace+the sanctification by Fire of God) there’s physical, earthly transformation as well as the spiritual. We also see in 2 Peter 3:10 that it is Heaven that is going to burn up, and the Earth will be laid bare (which, to me, is transformation of earth via heaven). We have to be careful not to create a dichotomy between earth and heaven, between physical and spiritual. True incarnation brings both together…Blessings…
Comment by Mako Fujimura May 19, 2009 @ 8:31 amWarren is right on target… listening from a “foreign perspective” his thoughts on culture seem to be really sound. Incarnational preaching might be the only cross-cultural key to open up people’s hearts around the globe. As we continue our evangelistic approach in many other ways (presence, proclamation, persuasion) we must not forget that the one and only message that validates our efforts is Christ’s life lived through us…
The question is… how can we make incarnational preaching something viral within the church?
May be a better question would be… Am I infected?
Greetings from El Salvador!
Julio.-
Comment by Julio Contreras May 20, 2009 @ 2:09 amThat is some great stuff! It stands to reason that the only way to bring change to our culture is through the method by which Jesus brings change to us. It is through incarnation that He “penetrates” our hearts and miraculously places His life in ours. It is simple and as Rick points out, it will always be relevant. A hundred years from now, lonely people will still want to know that they can have a relationship with One who will never leave them. It has always been and will always be about “…the Word made flesh.” The degree that we effectually engage our culture is to the degree that we allow Christ to change us.
Comment by Rebecca Qualls May 21, 2009 @ 6:00 pm