Cultural maps enable us to navigate our worlds. They are in our imagination so we tend not to recognize them as our cultural maps. These maps shape how we make decisions and act, but we take them for granted because they’re so much a part of our lives we don’t actually notice them.

The cultural map that has shaped the contemporary church is known as the era of Christendom. Christendom is the name given to the religious culture that has dominated western society since the fourth century. The maps of Christendom, however, no longer help us to navigate our culture but remain the primary definer of the church’s self-understanding especially in the United States. In other words, for the first few hundred years of our country, the church has enjoyed a privileged position in the center of culture. The upside of Christendom is that many people did attend church. The downside and the overall net effect of Christendom is Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, spiritual movement to being a static religious institution.

The point is, we are in a time when the maps we have inherited are no longer sufficient to describe the places where we find ourselves. The rapidity and extent of change create disequilibrium, anxiety, confusion and disorientation among people in North American culture. This means that our maps of need to be re-imagined. Once more the church is required to become mapmakers in order to effectively navigate the world we are seeking to engage with the Gospel.