In the context that we find ourselves in – the so-called Bible Belt – there is still the residue of Christendom remaining. Yet those are crumbling rapidly. Its not hard to find examples of the values and assumptions of the Church being at the center of culture challenged (see here).

The question then for our church becomes how to intentionally disengage. That is, we must learn how to distinguish the Christian message from the operative assumptions, values, and pursuits of our host society.

The first inherent assumption that we want to distinguish from the biblical message is that most church goers in our context equate evangelism with inviting people to church. What I mean is that it is assumed that most people’s values and life pursuits have been shaped by the Christian story and that they just need to get back into church (i.e., attend regularly on Sundays). Therefore, churches spend a great deal of time, energy, and money on buildings and marketing in order to attract people.

What we hope to recover is a vision of Christian existence and mission that was lost precisely because the churches were too keen to market their “product” in ways attractive to nominal Christians.

What we realize is that more and more people have no connection whatsoever to the biblical story. And their opinion of churches is that people are merely an object to be pursued. They hear the voice of the church saying, “We don’t want to really be your friend. We don’t really care about you or all of your silly problems. You’re not like us. We just want you in one of these perfectly pews or perfectly aligned chairs every Sunday with your wallet open.”

I know that most church leaders in our city have a huge passion for reaching generations of people, but do not have any real meaningful relationships with them. If they do, they are superficial at best. Instead of investing in the lives of people, churches invest in marketing and programs to appeal to the “needs” of spiritual consumers and call it creative arts and ministry.

So what we hope to do to is re-engage the culture by actively ushering people into the web of relationships among our church’s missionary members by welcoming them and inviting them to be involved in the rhythms of our life together as the Body of Christ.

The missionary members of the church make friends and seek to demonstrate the love of God in practical ways; not to complete strangers, but instead people who by all accounts do not know God but are in genuine friendships with missionary members of the church who do. In this way the non-Christian is not connecting with the church in terms of events and large programs, but instead smaller face-to-face ongoing contact with people who love and speak truthfully to them.

So what are some other ways to intentionally disengage from the assumptions of your context?

How do you seek to re-engage people with the Gospel?