The older I get, the more concerned I become with the culture around me. Culture is the number one influencer in the marketplace today. Everything rises and falls on the loudest voice, the most authoritative figure, the company that sells the most product, the artist that produces the biggest hits… But it hasn’t always been this way. For generations, the Church was the largest influencer of the culture. Each town had a town square and in the center of that square was the Church. The Church ran the hospitals, the schools, the orphanages, the nursing homes, the convalescent homes…every center of welfare and leadership stemmed from the walls and the bodies that made up the Church. 

Oftentimes, the church building doubled as the Courthouse and the school. Juries sat in her pews and school board meetings were held in her halls. Lives, for good and bad, were held in the balance within the confines of the Church. What changed? The Church gave up. We walked away from our social concerns to “focus on the ministry” and left the care of the people to the government. We turned over hospitals and school boards. We decided the legislative bodies would do a better job of caring for the least of these than we could do. We gave up our orphanages and senior adult homes. Somewhere along the way, we decided Sunday morning was more important than any of the other six days in the week and we walked away. We went into a hole. We left the shaping of the culture up to people who were hungry for the power and ready for the challenge. And they’ve done their job well.

Every agenda set by the anti-church movement has or is being accomplished. But we can’t complain. We shot ourselves in the foot. 

What can Christians do today? I wasn’t alive when those decisions to walk away were made and neither were you, but we are certainly left with the consequences. As far as I can see, we have two options. We can let the anti-Jesus culture continue to have its way OR we can begin to reengage the culture that has begun to hate us. I choose to engage. If we choose not to engage, to sit back and watch, we will invariably become bitter critics. The last thing I want to become is the guy who can tell everyone all that is wrong with them and have no solutions to fix anything. 

The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are not a simple, little startup with some big ideas and few years under our belt. We’ve been practicing, for better or worse, for the last 2000 years. We are not the measure of morality—the Bible holds that position all by itself—but we are its keepers. Without the consistent, faithful voice of the Church, virtue becomes whatever the culture makes it. If truth is absent from the platform, morality becomes a miss mesh of the agenda of the most popular speakers. And I refuse to sit by and let this culture shape my children and the people in my care. So, I engage.

And how do we engage? We don’t storm the capitol or boycott Hollywood. There’s a whole truckload of things I don’t like about both places, but making myself their enemy is not going to change a thing. Remember, the only reason they have the power they have is because the Church ceded it to them. How do we engage? We love well. We apologize for the mistakes we’ve made and the sin we’ve ignored. We turn away from the biases that keep us from speaking truth. We repent from our mistakes by choosing to act like Jesus instead of a soldier who’s mad about what’s been done to him. 

I refuse to allow the culture to raise my kids. I choose to engage our culture in meaningful ways. To do this, I choose to love the world like God loves me: on His terms, not mine. Do you agree? Where do you start? You want to re-engage in orphan care? Get involved in the foster system. You want to care for the sick? There are a thousand different ways you can be involved in the medical system as deeply as becoming a professional (doctor, nurse, radiologist…) all the way to visiting those who are sick and in care. You want to be an influencer in the education system? Get to know our educators. They’re great and they’ll welcome you into the classroom and the hallways. You want to reverse the ills of the welfare system? Engage in one of the many homeless shelters, transitional houses or rehabs we have scattered around our area. 

What I’m saying is this, stop griping about how different things are today than when you were a kid. That only puts a deeper divide between you and those behind you. Vote. Do your research and engage with those on Capitol Hill. Pray and love those you think you can’t stand. I believe

 you’ll find the Church isn’t as helpless as you think it is.