What role does the local church play in impacting culture? Christians often perceive spreading the gospel to be most impactful in contexts outside of their own communities. Yet, in doing so, we forget the impact we have in our own backyards. Fulfilling the Great Commission means spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. Our local communities are no exception. Christians are responsible for championing the good in culture, calling out evil, and searching for how we can contribute to our communities. In this video, John Stonestreet analyzes the dynamic of the Church’s impact on culture and how Christians can engage local communities.
- The Power of the Middle
- Championing the Good
- Adding to What is Missing
- Stopping the Evil
- Fixing the Broken
A lot of Christians get really upset by what they see happening at the top of culture, what’s happening in DC, what’s happening in Hollywood, what’s happening in these cultural epicenters. And certainly, that stuff has an impact on a day-to-day life. So there’s people that ought to care about them. But everyday churches and everyday neighborhoods have a profound ability to impact culture not at the top, but at the middle. We underestimate the power of the middle. It’s interesting.
Churches Have the Opportunity to Impact Culture
If you go back and read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, who looked at the American experiment and said what was unique about it, he pointed to the middle. He pointed at what he called mediating institution, civil society. And the tip of the spear for those? Churches. Building up strong opportunities to build up local culture, in a way that protected the citizen from big government and also helped the citizen cultivate moral and virtuous character.
We’ve forgotten that. We have forgotten the power of looking in our own backyard. And one of the challenges is some of the most distinct threats to religious liberty is not happening from the Supreme Court. It’s happening from local non-discrimination ordinances that go too far. Well-meaning school board folks that are just trying to do the right thing, but they overstep the bound because they don’t understand the role that religion can play in the public square. And so this provides a wonderful opportunity for Christians, in America in particular.
If you look at American society for the last 20, 25 years, I think the most significant social trend, or at least one of them, is that emptying out of the significance of mediating institutions, voluntary association. Even look at the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts trained a whole generation of young men to be men.
Champion the Good
And as they become less and less important, unfortunately, sometimes self-inflicted. Just leave some space. And the church can jump in and engage culture there. So here’s a couple questions that maybe pastors can ask in community with their believers about their local communities: Number one, what’s good that we can protect, celebrate, and promote? Christians should champion the good. Good art, good education, good business practice, good laws, that sort of thing. Christians should be behind the good.
Sometimes we’re only known for what we’re against and never what we’re for. Second, what is missing that we can add? Is there a missing presence of adults in the public schools? There’s a lot of neighborhoods around America that are welcoming churches into public schools. Why? Because these kids need mentors. These kids need coaches. The paint needs to be changed on the walls, and these are amazing opportunities. Third one is: What is evil that we need to stop? There’s evil. Some of our neighborhoods are havens for sex trafficking. Some of our neighborhoods have way too much porn and that sort of stuff happening in it.
Impact Culture and Community While Sharing the Gospel
Maybe the divorce rate is raw. Maybe there’s a high level of foster kids that need to find homes. What evil can we stop? And then fourth: What’s broken that we can fix? I’d love all the rewords in the Bible. Restore, redeem, renew, and regenerate. And I think God loves rewords. I think God loves when broken things get fixed. And what a testimony to the community. And listen, we don’t do this in place of sharing the gospel of personal salvation. You bet we do both because we’re called to do both.
John Stonestreet serves as President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He’s a sought-after author and speaker on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetics.
