After his resurrection, Jesus gave the church the commission to disciple the nations (Mt 28.18-20). In fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, all the nations would be blessed through Abraham’s seed: Christ, head and body. When John sees a vision of the glorious church, the New Jerusalem, he sees kings bringing their glory into the city. The glory of kings is the realms of their dominions. Entire cultures will be brought in and made part of the city of God.
This glorious vision is overwhelming. The task seems daunting. We hear this grand narrative of “the world” and “nations” consciously arranging their cultures under the lordship of Christ, look at the task before us, and say, “How in the world do we get there from here?” We have trouble maintaining personal disciplines, ordering our own family life, and arranging local church life so that the church acts the way she is supposed to act. How are we expected to be changing the broader culture around us? The task, while glorious in its vision, seems hopeless.
The grand narrative is necessary for us to stay encouraged that Jesus is working and will ultimately succeed in bringing the nations in submission to himself. Our seemingly small efforts are a part of what Jesus is doing in the world by his Spirit, and they will ultimately be successful.
But what exactly are we to be doing to be a part of this victorious story of the church? In short, we are to be striving to be the church that God has called us to be. We are to be cultivating the culture of the local church so that her culture reflects the culture that is displayed for us in John’s vision of the church in Revelation 21–22.
Cultivating culture is a simple concept, yet it is difficult and, many times, complex undertaking. To cultivate or develop a culture, people who are in relationship with one another must establish common patterns of life that range from how they communicate to what they celebrate. If you are setting out deliberately to cultivate a certain culture in your family, for example, you see what you desire your family to be, and then you incorporate certain patterns of life in your relationships to become what you desire. You want your family to enjoy spending time together, communicating with one another. But your family is fragmented, hardly speaking to one another, and each person does his own thing. If the culture of your home is to change, you have times when you put away all of your personal items such as books, electronic devices, et al., and you spend time together talking. If the individualistic, disjointed culture in your home is to change, then there must be some patterns of life–disciplines–in your family.
All that we do in our lives together leads us somewhere. Our relationships are being shaped by how we share our lives together. As the church, we shouldn’t be haphazard about this. Our activities should be deliberate and purposeful, not merely “keeping everyone busy” for busyness sake. If we want to be culture of worship, then we must pattern our lives together around activities of worship and prayer. If we want to be a festive culture (and we should), we ought to have patterns of celebration and feasting.
Culture will develop. It may look like an unkempt garden, filled with all sorts of random weeds, or it can look like a beautiful, organized, and fruitful garden; like somebody meant to plant and cultivate it. The difference will be what the gardeners do. If we set good patterns in our lives together, then we can cultivate a good culture.
This is what Jesus has called us to do in our local situation. He has given us a little piece of the world to cultivate. All we are supposed to do in his world-wide mission is cultivate what he has given us. As we do this, we are participating in the grand narrative and glorious vision of the church that will certainly come to pass.
Let us be faithful in the culture he has given us.
