The Catalytic Church:
The Culturally-Relevant Church
Scripture Reading: Acts 17:16-34
Dave and Diane had just moved,
because of Dave’s job,
to the small town of Catoosa, Oklahoma.
The young couple had been struggling
in many ways before,
but the move made things worse.
Diane had no friends in Catoosa;
and in addition to the keen loneliness she felt
in their first months there,
she was experiencing morning sickness,
and was already resenting Dave’s long hours at work.
Though they’d recently celebrated four years of marriage, the bloom was definitely off the rose. And they felt keenly aware that they needed friends,
support,
and maybe even God.
So they made a decision.
Diane and Dave--
though they had never done so as kids,
and found the whole idea kinda foreign and scary- decided to “try church” that weekend.
The couple were among the first to arrive
for the church’s 11 a.m. worship service that morning.
They parked squarely in front of the church’s white-wood frame sanctuary, in front of an old fashioned “hitching post.”
They entered the sanctuary, which smelled faintly of mildew and Old English wood soap.
A few steps into the sanctuary, a man smiled at them and extended a mimeographed bulletin with the order of service printed on it, that clearly indicated that when such things as the “call to worship” and the offertory were scheduled to occur.
As they sat on the fourth pew from the back, they observed a pulpit,
a podium,
and a stained glass window.
Someone droned out a “prelude” on a massive organ, a robed teenager lit some candles, a robed pastor entered, and a robed choir of eight people filed in behind him.
In time, about 75 people had assembled. Diane noticed that she was the only woman not wearing a dress.
After the pastor welcomed everyone and announced the “pot luck supper,”
the upcoming rummage sale,
six committee meetings,
and that week’s board meeting,
everyone stood as if responding to some secret signal, and sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” from hymnals that included the music for each hymn.
A few readings from a large King James Bible followed the hymns, and a sermon, urging loyalty to that denomination’s distinctives and warnings about evils like movies and rock music, ended with an appeal to be “more committed.”
A few moments later, Dave and Diane sat in their car and stared out the windshield . . . .
wondering what had just happened.
It would certainly have been different if they had been raised by church-going parents, but that day Dave and Diane were mystified by the kinds of things that “first-timers” notice,
the features that reflect where the surrounding culture used to be, but is no longer--
except in traditional churches that seem driven to perpetuate the period between 1930 and 1950.
In fact, Dave and Diane’s case, which I’ve borrowed from an article by Dr. George Hunter III in The Asbury Herald, includes many features or practices that are neither prescribed or modeled in Scripture nor are they reflective of contemporary society.
For example, once upon a time, the hitching post was placed in front of churches for people who rode horses and wagons to church, and the 11 a.m. worship hour was set for the convenience of dairy farmers.
The hymn I mentioned, while a classic that many “church folk” love, was written in the early nineteenth century. The architecture, the pews, the pulpit, the windows, and the organ were all furnishings that had once been very contemporary and highly functional but had long since largely disappeared . . .
except in church buildings. . .
and antique shops.
And other practices,
like the unwritten “no slacks” rule
or the seemingly secret cues that caused
everyone to stand, sit, or kneel in unison
were apparently preserved to make sure
that no visitor or newcomer ever felt comfortable!
The case of Dave and Diane’s first Sunday in church reminds us that
all churches are contemporary,
but that many are contemporary
to some earlier generation;
all churches are culturally-relevant,
but many are relevant
to some culture other than the one they occupy and to which they try to witness.
Good morning. My name is Bob Hostetler, and
this morning at Cobblestone Community Church we’re continuing a five-week series of messages from the Bible, entitled “The Catalytic Church.”
Now, I want to explain, for anyone who’s visiting or who’s here for the first time this morning, that we here at Cobblestone Community Church are preparing to launch
a new, distinct, and dynamic church
here in Oxford
on Palm Sunday, April 8, 2001.
And in the meantime,
we are doing two things simultaneously:
1) we are meeting here each Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to worship together and build the community and structure and resources we’ll need to be in place before our launch Sunday, and
2) we are trying in as many ways as we know how to get everyone who chooses to be involved on the same page and moving in the same direction (nothing like mixing a few metaphors!). So, over the five weeks of this series, we’re going to try to define as clearly as possible five things about Cobblestone Community Church that we believe will make this a catalytic church,
one that doesn’t smolder,
doesn’t sputter,
but one that BURSTS into flame
and sets everything around it on fire!
So, as we begin, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Acts in the New Testament--
that’s Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts--
Acts, chapter 17, starting at verse 16;
that’s on page ____ if you’re reading
from one of the Bibles we’ve provided for you
in the center of each table . . .
We provide those Bibles for two reasons:
• if you happen to forget to bring your own Bible to the morning celebration, well, there’s a Bible there for your use so you can see with your own eyes and examine with your mind the truth of what’s being taught up here at the front. And,
• secondly, if you don’t have a Bible of your own at home, those Bibles are there so you can take one home with you, absolutely free, as our gift.
Now, what Dave & Diane encountered that Sunday in Catoosa, Oklahoma, is what Peter Drucker and Lyle Schaller call “The Age of Discontinuity.”
Due to more changes than we can even catalogue, the cultural and experiential world of the 1950s no longer exists anywhere . . . EXCEPT on the inside of many evangelical,
Bible-believing
churches!
And many of us who are Christ-followers--
especially those of us who’ve been going to church for more than a few years--
don’t realize how mystifying most of
the things we do
and the things we say
are to people who don’t know what it’s like to live in the 19th century . . . let alone the 1st century!
That is why we here at Cobblestone Community Church believe that we are called by God to be a culturally-relevant church.
Sure, some of us dearly love the old hymns of the church;
many of us cut our teeth as Christians on the “thees” and “thous” of the King James Bible;
and a few of us find the ancient liturgies of the church to be challenging and inspiring;
But we are driven to find as many ways as possible-
new ways, old ways, any way--
to communicate God’s unchanging truths
to a constantly changing culture.
And we have as our model none other than Jesus himself. Bill Hybels, in his book, Rediscovering Church, one of the key resources that we recommend on our website (www. Cobblestone church.com) to those who want to know where we’re coming from and where we’re going, says this:
Jesus was one of the most effective, relevant communicators of all time. Whatever was hot in first-century society, whatever had captured the people’s attention, whatever was woven into the fabric of their everyday experiences, Jesus would draw from it. He would say, “Look at the fig tree,” or “Consider the mustard seed,” and everybody knew what he was talking about. . . . Once, he picked up a Roman coin and asked, “Whose face is on this?” Another time, he referred to eighteen people who had been killed by a collapsed tower. He was fresh and current. I doubt if it ever crossed his mind to time-warp his teaching five hundred years into the past.
Amen! In fact, if you’ll look now at Acts 17 in your Bibles, the passage I asked you to look up a moment ago, I want to show you a Christ-follower
who provides us with a cool model for communicating God’s unchanging truths
to a constantly changing culture.
Now, before we go much further,
let me just explain that the Book of Acts,
written by Luke,
the same guy who wrote the third Gospel--
Matthew, Mark, LUKE, John--
is a record of the “acts” of the apostles,
Jesus’ first missionaries,
and the story of how the early church
started and spread
in the twenty years or so
after Jesus’ death and resurrection.
So keep that in mind as you consult your own Bible as I point out to you
four things the Apostle Paul displayed in Athens that we at Cobblestone hope will come to characterize everything we do here
in Oxford and the surrounding area.
And the first is this:
1. He went to the marketplace (v. 19)
Look with me at verses 16-21
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Notice especially verse 17. . .
he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there.
Paul did not neglect the synagogue; as a matter of fact, if you read the book of Acts carefully, you’ll see that’s always where he started his outreach efforts anytime he entered a city.
But he also went to the marketplace. He got outta the “Christian ghetto” and got into the culture and rubbed shoulders with the Stoics and Epicureans who dominated the culture at that time.
And we hope to imitate that strategy ourselves.
You can’t be culturally relevant
if you’re culturally ignorant.
We don’t want Cobblestone to be a group of people who know the Bible but not much else,
who know each other but no one else.
In fact, we’ll see in a few moments that Paul was well-read not only in the Hebrew Scriptures but also among pagan philosophers and poets!
And, before we move on, let me just mention that there are some scholars and commentators who believe Paul blew it here in Athens, that he “caved” and tried to preach philosophy instead of Bible. . .
But I strongly disagree, if for no other reason than that you would expect Luke, if indeed he did write Acts under the inspiration of God, as I believe he did, to make it clear that Paul’s actions here were a capitulation. But I think Luke does just the opposite, and shows us how a Christ-follower can interact effectively with a culture that is as diametrically opposed to Christian teaching as the Epicureans and Stoics were.
So . . . Paul went to the marketplace and, as a result, was given an audience before the Areopagus, a sort of Supreme Court of Athens, perhaps with an audience made up of more than the thirty or so members of the council.
Which leads me to mention the second thing he did, which provides a model for a culturally relevant church, and that is:
2. He treated them respectfully (v. 22)
Look with me at verse 22:
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.”
When Paul addressed them as “Men of Athens,” he adopted the customary manner of beginning a speech to the Areopagus, a mode of address that showed respect to that assembly.
He did something similar in Acts 24--feel free to turn over a few pages to Acts 24:10--where he stood before the Roman governor Felix, and said,
“I know that for a number of years you have been a judge over this nation; so I gladly make my defense”(Acts 24:10, NIV).
And again, in Acts 26:2, when he stood before Herod Agrippa, he began by saying,
“King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews, and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently” (Acts 26:2-3, NIV).
These were not bishops, priests, or nuns Paul was talking to; they were total pagans, and some were tremendously corrupt. But Paul treated them with respect, just as his colleague Peter had commanded in his letter to the church when he wrote,
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15, NIV).
And that, my friends,
my brothers and sisters,
is how I urge you to interact with all
those in the culture around you,
with gentleness and respect.
In practical terms,
that means getting off our high horse,
and being willing to listen a lot more,
and maybe recognizing that
being unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and knowing everything
are not the same thing!
It means some other things that we don’t have time to go into right now, because we must move on to the third thing Paul did that day in Athens, which provides a model for a culturally-relevant church, and that is:
3. He found common ground (v. 23)
Look with me at verse 23, where Paul says:
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
Now, it was said to be easier to meet a god in downtown Athens than it was to meet a man! Athens was crowded with idols, thousands of them by most estimates.
But Paul had noticed an altar bearing the inscription “To the Unknown God,” and that gave him what he was looking for:
a little parcel of common ground
with the Athenians.
He had cast around until he had found
something in common with them,
something he could build on,
something he could use to
open a conversation.
I think it’s beautiful!
Because that is what we want to here at Cobblestone. It’s what any of us must do if we hope to open a dialogue with our friends and neighbors in the culture around us.
If Paul were speaking today in Oxford, Ohio,
he might say, “As I walked around and looked carefully at your movie marquees. . .”
he might say, “As I walked by your desk I noticed the book you were reading. . .”
he might say, “As I cut you off in traffic, I noticed the song on your radio . . .”
Okay--that was a trick . . . Paul wouldn’t be cutting off people in traffic, would he?
But you get my point, I know. . .
Paul found common ground with those outside the church, and so must we, if we hope to be a culturally-relevant church.
As we must also do the fourth and final thing Paul did that day in Athens, and that is:
4. He pointed them to the Living God (vv. 24 31)
Look with me at verse 24, where Paul continues speaking, and says:
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. `For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.’
"Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
[I’ll continue reading here, just to finish the story]
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others (Acts 17:24-34, NIV).
And very quickly, let me show you something else that’s cool, because it can form another model for us to keep in mind when dealing with those who don’t have a Christian perspective.
Notice the progression Paul follows. He starts with:
a. General revelation (God is Creator of all) (vv. 24-25)
and proceeds to
b. Bible knowledge (God is within reach of all) (v. 26-27)
and then
c. Illustrations from contemporary culture (v. 28)
and concludes with
d. An appeal for repentance and salvation based on the truth (vv. 29-31)
Wow! That’s a model, a pattern that we would do well to follow today, twenty centuries after Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens!
And, it’s a model that, God helping us, we at Cobblestone Community Church will strive to emulate as we aspire to be a catalytic, culturally relevant church where
Christ-followers
and seekers
and skeptics alike
will find it possible to fellowship
and learn
and grow closer to each other
and closer to God.
And that process,
that calling
can begin right now, this morning.
Because you know,
we don’t gather here every Sunday
to hear Bob talk . . .
we come--at least I do, and I know many of you do -to hear God talk.
And he is speaking right now,
to your heart,
and he’s doing it so that, as Paul said,
you might reach out for him
and find him,
though he is not far from any one of us here.
Whether you’re a Christ-follower
or a seeker
or a skeptic this morning,
God’s promise to you is this:
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13, NIV).
Will you reach out for him?
Will you respond to him?
Will you let him have his way,
whatever he’s whispering to your heart this morning?
I pray you will,
as we spend a few final moments in worship . . .
