Church and Culture

… the church is not an independent, closed organism that has all the resources it needs for its own indefinite survival. We are hosted by a culture, and in order to survive in that culture… we must open ourselves to it and adapt to it.  We can have absolutely no chance of shaping it unless we can sense and respond to it, and this means adapting our interfaces, our “ports” if you will, to allow free transfer each way.  Of course, there are those who still see the church as a holy lifeboat, attempting to save as many as possible from the sinking vessel that is modern culture, and that any attempt to adapt it to will result  in us getting pulled down too, but it seems impossible to defend this position when we read of a God who got stuck in and involved in a culture at every conceivable level. 101-102

♥ Brewin, Kester. 2007. Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church that is Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-up/Communal/Flexible {Always Evolving}. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.