It is instructive that when our Lord began his public ministry, he stated his presupposition: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand repent, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The ministry of Jesus was set within the culture in which he was born and reared. With rare penetration he grasped the presuppositions on which his own culture was based, as suggested by the illuminating questions he put to people and the parables he told. His ministry was notable for the way he engaged the issues that mattered most to people.

Jesus modeled for us what it means to be in missionary encounter with one’s culture. He was the outsider who became the insider without surrendering his outsider status. . . He represented to his people basileia [kingdom], a source of judgment and hope. In his person they knew they were both encountering God and themselves. In his incarnation Jesus held together his full identification with the human situation and his total commitment to basileia. This was the force field out of which his extraordinary mission was conducted. But every clue Jesus gave his own disciples as to their own missionary vocation suggests that this is the authoritative model for them as well. Jesus left no general guidelines, formulas, or methods for his disciples to follow – only a demanding model.

- Wilbert R. Shenk, The Culture of Modernity as a Missionary Challenge

Shenk goes on saying that basing a missional encounter with culture on the Kingdom and Incarnation will have at least three implications.

(1) This calls us to reject the Christendom notion to claim a culture as being Christian.
(2) The church’s relationship with culture is that of a missionary encounter.
(3) There is no theological basis for making a distinction between mission and evangelism.

He concludes with “The church remains socially and salvifically relevant only as long as it is in tension with its culture. The ongoing task of the church is to train its members to view culture through the constructive lenses of the missionary.”

So what are your thoughts?
What would you add/take away?
How do you see your church as living in tension with culture?
How does your church train its members to live and function as missionaries?

These are some of things we wrestle with on a regular basis as Matthew’s Table seeks to incarnate the Gospel in Lebanon in order to become a tangible expression of the Kingdom of God.