This phrase (“What Goes On in Church Can’t Stay in Church”) is the antithesis to many of the ways the church has responded to the culture around it, and is core for the church to be a community of the curious. Historically there are three general responses by the church to the society in which it resides.
The first response is the “Let’s find a cave”perspective. It espouses that if we are to be true followers of Jesus Christ, then we must disassociate from the evils and problems of the world. We have seen many movements like this through the years such as the Amish, who separate themselves from the culture, locking themselves into the early nineteenth-century settlers’ mode. Or the compound people who buy a large plot of land in Montana, put up a big fence, stockpile food and some guns with a big “KEEP OUT OR GET SHOT” sign. Individually, we also do this by creating a Christian subculture that isolates us from the world. If you want to, you can attend a Christian school, transact only with Christian businesses, have a Christian doctor, listen to Christian music, watch Christian TV, and go online with a Christian browser. It’s not that any of these things in and of itself is entirely bad, but the fact that we have the capacity to create a “Christian” ghetto. This is not only a non-biblical response, it doesn’t work.
Second, we can have the “We are all one” response. That is, the “Can’t we all get along?” attitude. Within this philosophy, the choice is made not to isolate from the world, but to blend into the world. In fact, eliminating the distinctions between following Christ and living in the world is the goal of this perspective. In Germany, during WWII, the official church did this by supporting Hitler and the Nazi Party. In Europe today, where Christianity was paramount for 1,500 years, most of the beautiful churches are no different from the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They are just tourist attractions because the church has lost its distinction.
The final unhealthy response is the “Storm the beaches” approach. There was an old Marine shirt that said, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Unfortunately, some Christ followers and churches have that military mentality: Let’s Bible-bash the culture. If they don’t get it, open their mouth wide and crank open the fire hydrant of theology; if we berate them enough, perhaps they will finally cave in and surrender to our ways. These are the churches that legalistically present the, “My way or the high way” approach to secondary and non-essential theological issues.
So how are we to respond to our culture? We do what God did. He stepped out of heaven and into the world.
What amazes me about Luke 2:6-7 is the highly regular nature of Jesus’ birth. God, in human form, enters history. He penetrates the culture and enters just like each and every one of us did as a fragile, crying baby. In verse 6, it says the time came for the baby to be born. Mary had to carry Jesus for nine months, plus or minus a few weeks just like all of us. Jesus was fully human. The Christmas song, Away in a Manger, was wrong when it said, “no crying he makes.” He did, in fact, cry, and he needed to be wrapped, just like other babies in that day, fed, and provided for.
Not only did God become man, but he also entered the world in very humble conditions. He was not the son of the wealthy and powerful, but of a common carpenter and a teenage girl. Jesus wasn’t born in a million dollar birthing room with sanitary walls, heat lamps, nose suckers and professionally trained nurses and doctors. There weren’t any proud grandparents sitting in the waiting room. He didn’t receive a baby shower, cards and balloons. There was no emergency infant ICU just in case. No, Jesus was born much like many babies all over the world today in impoverished nations. He was a human baby born to a poor family in adverse conditions. God became man and dwelt among us.
In John 1:14, the author is not only telling us that God became man, but also that he was, in fact, God. The Word orLogos became flesh and the Greek word Logos was used by ancient Greek philosophers to express the central principle of the universe. John is saying, in a language that his audience could understand, that the central principle of the universe, God himself, the Creator, became human. This man Jesus was God in flesh. He walked, he talked, he slept; but he also healed, fed thousands, and rose from the dead. Professor Leonard Sweet writes,
"He dressed himself in the customary garb of the day where he lived. He spoke the language of the day in which he lived. He fully inhabited the cultural space of the first century…If our Savior joins us where we are, notwhere we ought to be, what excuse do we have to not join people where they are, while insisting on where they ought to be?"[1]
We must be a people who step beyond the walls of the Christian community and enter the arena that God has set before us. As a community of faith, we are challenged that what goes on in church can’t stay in church. The seventy minutes on Sunday morning is not the zenith of the Christian experience. Church service is not church, but a part of a much more potent and cultural transforming organism called church. No, what happens here (in service) doesn’t stay here, but transforms our life and community far beyond the walls of the church. We must not hide from, assimilate into, or try to destroy the people around us. But, like Christ, we must seek to understand the culture, serve people, and speak in a way that all can understand the hope that is found in Jesus. That is what is meant by, “What goes on in church can’t stay in church.”
Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor
