Engaging with Culture :: Engaging with Culture by Doing Culture – Part IV

If what we discovered in the last post is correct then it makes culture just as important to spend time redeeming as picking up litter, cleaning off graffiti, maintaining parks and gardens.

When we engage with culture by doing it, we are joining God in his work of redeeming everything and bringing all things under Jesus.

We have such a privilege and responsibility to take something that has been corrupted by sin and show the world hints of what is to come in the new creation.
By redeeming culture we can be pointing to what God is doing with the rest of the world through Christ.

Ok – so we should redeem culture.
But does that mean we should come out with more ‘Christian songs’?
Should we only paint pictures of Jesus?
Should we only write books where everything is good and nice?

Please – no!

Engaging with Culture :: Engaging with Culture by Doing Culture – Part III

Group work ::
Look at these passages and answer:
What area of culture is going on here?
What is the effect? Why is it being used?
Is the effect good or bad? What does it reflect about the participants relationship to God?
Where does it fit into the ‘Big Story’?

Genesis 1:
Genesis 4:21

Proverbs 1 (poetry in teaching)
Exodus 15:1-18 (music in celebration of rescue)
Isaiah 16:10 (Lack of singing – sorrow for sin/music in work)
Jeremiah 48:33 (Work)
Ecclesiastes 2:8 (celebration and play)
Matt 11:17
Judges 11:34
Exodus 32:17-18 (war)
Psalm 30:11 (Dancing)
Psalm 150:4
1 Samuel 18:7 (Positive)
Ezekiel 33:32 (Negative)
Psalm 67:4 (whole nations called to praise God)
Revelation 4-5
James 5:13 (expresses joy)
Psalm 92:1-3 (thanksgiving)
1Corinthians 14:15 (prayer)
Psalm 72:20
1 Kings 18:26-28
Job 3

According to the big story of the Bible God’s plan is to bring everything under Christ.
And culture comes under this too.

Engaging with Culture :: Engaging with Culture by Doing Culture – Part II

Group work ::
Back into your groups I’d like you to write down all the reasons you think we as Christians don’t spend much time ‘doing’ culture.

I think the main problem is that we don’t think that doing culture is very important.
We enjoy it, but doing it would take a lot more effort and time.
Surely we as Christians have more important things to do.
All this culture stuff seems the privilege of spoilt middle class youths, who reckon they’ve got so much to say about the pains of life, but wouldn’t no pain if a hammer hit them on their head.
Surely we as Christians should be spending our time with the marginalised, the broken, the people who don’t have the money, nor the inclination to engage with ‘culture’?
Surely we should be spending our time reading the Bible, praying, being at meetings of the church, going to Christian conferences.

Although all those things may well be good, I think we’ve got it all wrong if we think that culture is not important enough for us to spend time doing culture ourselves.

In the last two sessions we talked about how films and songs tell stories and we compared them to the big story of the Bible – Creation/Fall/Redemption/Consummation

Well this big story not only gives us a platform from which to engage with culture, but it also is the story that shapes how and why we should do culture as well.

Engaging with Culture :: Engaging with Culture by Doing Culture – Part I

The past couple of sessions we’ve looked at engaging with film and music – i.e. Culture that other people are producing, and we are enjoying!

In the final session, I want to look at our responsibility to engage with culture by doing some.

When looking at an issue like ‘culture’ we can be in danger of having quite a restricted view.
We may see culture as ‘high culture’ – opera’s or theatre. Things you have to dress up for and pay lots of money.

But as a working definition I’d like to call culture ‘creativity’.
Doing culture is being creative and sharing that with others in the community.