The Issues Around Cultural Distance and the Churched
Culture
If you look at the
population of North America on a continuum and number it from 1 to 4, it has
been observed that each # between the Christendom Paradigm and the unchurched
world is a significant barrier to communicating the Gospel. The farther from the Christendom or churched
world one moves, the more challenging it is to communicate the Gospel.
The Christendom paradigm works fairly well in reaching between 0 to 1
But - the farther
you get from 1 in cultural distance, the less the Christendom paradigm connects
or communicates the faith because we struggle to explain
our church vocabulary and the cultural trappings that often accompany our communication of
Gospel truth.
Attractional Church models
reaches from 0 to 2
at best
If we do succeed in
bringing in a 3 or 4 we often socialize them out of their current relationships to
get them to the Christendom relational world. Since the Gospel
moves best along relational lines, this is counterproductive in creating a
missional environment. It extracts
people from their natural relational networks!
In order to reach 3's and 4's we need to share who Jesus is and what he
has done for us minus the "churched culture" stuff. That is harder for many of us so we tend to
fish in the Red Ocean.
In the Christendom
or Attractional Church model we most often fish in the 40% Red Ocean. That is the churched and "looking for a
church" world. The 60% Blue Ocean is the Dechurched, Unchurched and Never
Churched world which makes up at least 60% of the population. That Blue Ocean world is at best indifferent
to the churched world "message" and often "hostile to
it."
The 60% Blue Ocean
will never respond to the old models.
Thus we have more and more churches taking the easy path and fishing in
the same 40% Red Ocean while those who are lost in the 60% ocean are left to
drown in their sin. Everybody is
competing for the same 40% (perhaps this % is even generous) instead of the 60%
Blue Ocean where real fishing needs to be done.
The Attractional
church model seeking to fish in the Red Ocean generally has a centrifugal model
of church, drawing people from the Red Ocean into their vortex. They indeed reach some people with the
Gospel. They do good and Godly work.
The Missional church
model seeks to fish in the Blue Ocean and looks to operate a centripetal model
sending people out into the community.
It sends people out as missionaries into the Blue Ocean reaching
populations which are often ignored in the churched world. When folks wade into that Blue Ocean they
often find that while people there are hostile to the "churched
world", they may be open to learn about Jesus, forgiveness, salvation and
changed lives.
The truth is that
people need Jesus in whichever ocean they are swimming. Our natural tendency, regardless of worship
style and ministry style is to fish in the Red Ocean because it feels more
natural and seems easier. I believe we
need to fish in both. After all, Jesus
told the disciples to throw their nets on the other side.
Alan Hirsch and Dave
Ferguson, in their book On the Verge,
(Exponential Series, 2011) say "Christendom has been around as a culture
for 17+ centuries and we have inoculated the culture against it." Sadly this is true in many ways. So - while the low hanging fruit may be in
the Red Ocean, what could your church do to equip fisherman who go out in the
name of Jesus to the Blue Ocean?
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