Discovering the Real Jesus in Monroe

(Mackinac Island)

I was recently part of a leadership conference the goal of which was to envision new ways of bringing renewal and transformation to churches in Michigan. During the conference I was at one point speaking to the other 65 pastors and leaders and made the comment that we now live in a post-Christian world. Some agreed with me, a few disagreed, others didn’t comment, and a few asked what I meant by that.

Today I’m reading Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus But Not the Church. Kimball defines this thing pretty well. He writes:

“We are living in an increasingly “post-Christian” culture. America was more of a “Christian nation” whose influences and values were aligned with Judeo-Christian valuesw and ethics. Even most atheists had a good sense of the story line of the Bible and its main characters, and usually respected the Bible and Christian pastors. Movies and media generally taught values and ethics that aligned for the most part with the Bible.

However, the world around us has drastically changed over the past thirty years or so. In our increasingly post-Christian culture, the influences and values shaping emerging generations are no longer aligned with Christianity. Emerging generations don’t have a basic understanding of the story of the Bible, and they don’t have one God as the predominant God to worship.” (p. 15)

I could not agree more. Anyone who thinks our culture is “Christian” has blinders on. And Monroe is no exception to this. Monroe County has a lot of churches, but the impact of transforming Monroe’s post-Christian culture is minimal. 

This is not necessarily all bad. Remember that in the book of Acts the first Christians were in a totally non-Christian world, and look what happened there. Needed: a new empowering of the Holy Spirit to set real Jesus-followers aflame with love and power and grace and mercy and righteousness and humility. Kimball’s book points us in a direction that helps us speak in this new cultural context without compromising the truths we hold so deeply about Jesus and God.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.