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Worship and Worldview: the Intersection of Church and Culture

Our summer sermon series is titled “Worship and Worldview: the Intersection of Church and Culture.” Like you, I’ve watched with concern the speed and trajectory of our current cultural values and morals. What was presented politically and societally just a few years ago in terms equality and acceptance has become a demand from cultural progressives. Increasingly, the Christian worldview and its accompanying values are becoming marginalized in our nation. As Christians, we grieve the trajectory of our nation’s morality. We grieve the loss of values and morality that we held dear. But what do we do about it? How do we as Christians live in a spiritually foreign land? How do we prepare our children and grandchildren to not only live with biblical values, but uphold them against the torrent of progressive ideology? 

I’m going to try to address these questions and others from the Bible during this summer sermon series. 

In recent years, I’ve read a variety of books around these themes:The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher, Pagans and Christians in the City by Stephen D. Smith, The Gathering Storm by Albert Mohler, Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman, and Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith. I’m currently working through several other books in preparation for this series: Soul Searching by Christian Smith, We Will Not Be Silenced by Erwin Lutzer, The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Eldon Ladd, Prepared to Give an Answer by Timothy Sanders, Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas, Handing Down the Faith by Christian Smith and Amy Adamcyk, and You Are What You Love by James K. A. Smith (among others). Desiring the Kingdom is one of my more interesting reads this year and provided some terminology that has been helpful in developing this sermon series. If you would like to join me in workin through these issues, I would encourage you to read one or more of these books this summer. 

We are living in a pivotal time as Christ-followers. The Bible offers us guidance, understanding, and help as we navigate these tension-filled issues because we are not the first generation of God’s people facing marginalization and challenge to our worldview and worship. We need a biblical framework to help us address contemporary challenges and practices. What the Bible says about these topics is important, and we need to faithfully understand (worldview) and practice (worship) what the Bible teaches. 

I invite you to join us for these topics. Plan to attend whenever you are in town. Watch/listen online when you are not able to join in person. Moms and dads, please note the subject material for the July 23 sermon from Leviticus 18 on “A Biblical Worldivew in a Culture of Pagan Sexuality.” This sermon will not be explicit, but it will deal with subject material that is aimed at explaining pagan sexuality in contrast with God’s expectations for his people. 

If you’d like to follow along with our sermons, you can join us in person at Wilkesboro Baptist on Sundays 8:00 AM, 9:30 AM or 11:00 AM. If you can’t make it in person, you can follow along for videos of our worship services on Vimeo, YouTube, or FaceBook. Wilkesboro Baptist also has a podcast channel where you can catch our sermons each week. You can find them here or subscribe to Wilkesboro Baptist Church on iTunes.

  • June 25 Text: Daniel 1. Title: “What it Means to be Christian in a Spiritually Foreign Land.”Theme: Daniel models what it means to think and live biblically in a pagan and wicked culture.
  • July 2  Mission Trip Report from our student trip to New York City. 
  • July 9 Text: Daniel 2:31-49. Title: “Developing a Kingdom Mindset in a Society of Ungodly Leaders.” Theme: Daniel and his three friends develop a heavenly, kingdom-oriented perspective in a pagan land. 
  • July 16 Text: Daniel 12:1-4. Title:  “Technology and a Christian Worldview.” Theme: Daniel prophesies about the increase of knowledge in the time of the Gentiles. 
  • July 23 Text: Leviticus 18 . Title: “A Biblical Worldview in a Culture of Pagan Sexuality.” Theme: Applying a Christian worldview in a society of contemporary sexual immorality requires understanding holiness and sexuality from God’s perspective. 
  • July 30 Text: Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. Title: “Vanity and The Best a Man Can Do.” Theme: Since we live in a society full of vanity, how do we manage to think and live biblically? 
  • Aug 6 Associate Pastor Tad Craig 
  • Aug 13 Text: Philippians 4:4-9. Title: “Memorization, Mind, Community and Christian Thinking.” Theme: Christians have the privilege and resource of the inner life and their mind under the direction of God. 
  • Aug 20 Text: Acts 17:22-34. Title: “Gospel, Apologetics, and a Pluralistic Culture.” Theme: Learning to discern religious, cultural, and philosophical patterns aids Christian thinking and witness. 
  • Aug 27 Text: Psalm 67. Title: “Christian Worldview and Mission.” Theme:Ultimately, Christian thinking recognizes and lives by God’s purpose in the world: fear, worship, and salvation through us to the nations. 

Here are a few overarching interpretive observations that should help us navigate this series and these topics: 

  • The United States is not Israel, nor does the United States represent people of God today. The United States would be more accurately described as Babylon or Rome in terms of values and morality. We should keep this in mind as we reflect on what it means to live in a sinful society as the people of God. 
  • Christ-followers are the people of God. The people of God make up the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom of God is an overarching theme in this series and helpful for how we see our role as the church in the culture today. 
  • We need both worldview (thinking) and worship (liturgies) to shape us cognitively and formatively as God’s people. Our orthodoxy (what we believe) and orthopraxy (what we do) must be informed and formed by Scripture. It will not be enough to think rightly about these issues. We need to be formed by biblical liturgies and spiritual disciplines to live faithfully as God’s people today. 
  • We must be active and intentional to know and articulate our worldview and practice Christian worship (liturgies). If we remain passive regarding the biblical worldview and worship, the secular and pagan liturgies driven by media, politics, education, entertainment, and social media will form us and our children/grandchildren to the prevailing values around us. Our recourse must be a commitment to thinking biblically and worshiping faithfully. 
  • The church must function as a place where the people of God can be rooted and fruitful. We must pray for sinners, share the gospel, speak up on these issues, vote, and engage society with our voices and actions. But we need to be aware that we may not be able to bring our values back from the immoral brink we’ve already crossed. We are watching the collision between unfettered sexual freedom and religions freedom. Whether or not we are able to affect change in our society, the church must remain a community of the King: Christ followers and Jesus worshipers. 
  • As the people of the Kingdom of Christ, we should have courage and confidence. The angel in Revelation 15 announces: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). We should be courageous for our King is the King. We should have confidence because no matter what happens in our culture and in our world, the kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord. 

Join us in prayer and participation during this summer sermon series. May we remain faithful as the people of God in the Kingdom of Christ.

Some Thoughts on the SBC Annual Meeting 2023

I’m posting my thoughts intentionally several days after attending the SBC Annual Meeting. Taking several days has allowed me to process the events of last week and distill them thoughtfully. For those in the Wilkesboro area, I will be presenting a more detailed report at Wilkesboro Baptist Church on Wednesday evening June 21.

Historic

One of the more noteworthy events (at least as far as the news media is concerned) was the appeal of disfellowshipped churches to the convention messengers. Never before in annual meeting history have disfellowshipped churches appealed directly to the messengers for reinstatement. Those appeals and votes took place during Tuesday’s business session. The three churches that exercised their appeals lost the votes and were not considered in friendly cooperation. Two churches (Saddleback included) were disfellowshipped on grounds that they have women pastors and one church was disfellowshipped on the grounds of knowingly affirming a pastor with a history of abusive and/or immoral behavior. While the moment was historic in the sense of what took place, anytime churches are considered not in friendly cooperation, we should grieve.

Pioneering

One of the greatest aspects of being a Southern Baptist is our cooperative mission efforts. Through combined giving efforts, nearly 3,500 full-time IMB missionaries serve the nations with 79 commissioned this year in New Orleans. But there still remain more than 3,000 unreached and unengaged people groups in our world. Unreached and unengaged are groups (signified by language and culture) who have no access to the gospel. The IMB is recruiting 300 pioneering missionaries who will be making a two year commitment to seek out these unreached groups. Their mission will be to seek, discover, and learn where these unreached groups are in order to strategize mission efforts to these groups. This new initiative is an exciting way for Southern Baptists to be on front of international missions.

Conservative

One of the recent themes at SBC Annual Meetings has been the suggestion that Southern Baptists are drifting liberal theologically. That is just simply not the case. At this year’s annual meeting, the messengers affirmed in a number of ways the commitment to a complementarian view of church leadership. A complementarian view of gender holds that God created men and women uniquely and differently. Husbands are to be the spiritual leaders in their homes (Eph. 5:22-33), and the role and function of pastor is reserved for qualified men (1 Tim. 2:12-14; 3:1-7; 1 Cor. 11:5; 14:33-35). The alternative position of egalitarianism holds that while men and women may be distinct, they can both serve in any role in the church. The primary text that the egalitarian position points to is Galatians 3:28. After this year’s annual meeting, the conservative roots and trajectory of the SBC are evident. Led by theologically conservative presidents, SBC seminaries are training and sending out pastors to lead congregations from a theologically conservative viewpoint.

Tone-Deficient

Southern Baptists are unfortunately notorious for finding issues and topics to disagree about. Part of this is due to the SBC value of local church autonomy. The denomination doesn’t tell local churches how to function. However, this year’s annual meeting seemed hyper-focused on one issue–women as pastors. While I’m pleased with the conservative, complementarian direction (see paragraph above), I was frustrated by the tone-deficient constancy of the focus on women as pastors. With the afore-mentioned disfellowshipping of churches regarding this issue, there was an amendment passed on the issue, an edit made to the Baptist Faith and Message, and resolutions that addressed the topic as well. Being in the room this year felt as if we kept clarifying and restating what we already believe. It’s one thing to be clear and define the parameters of our cooperating relationships (this is what happened in New Orleans), but it is another to restate over and over again the same thing. Personally, I think much of this tone-deficiency could have been avoided with a little better leadership from the committee on order of business and the platform. I am grateful for the heritage of godly female ministry in the SBC (Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong) in my (my mom) and my church involvement (past and current women in ministry in the church).

Cooperative

Being a Southern Baptist means cooperating for the purpose of missions. I lost several of the votes I cast at at the annual meeting. And while there are things that frustrate me regarding our denomination, cooperating for the purpose of mission is worthwhile. SBC President Bart Barber, who was elected for a second term, preached one of the most gracious presidential addresses that I’ve heard at a denominational meeting. He was biblically clear while also reminding the messengers and guests of their need to look for what is lovely and right within our denomination. Cooperation requires a willingness to work together. We may not all think alike, believe alike, or hold certain doctrines as first order or second order doctrines. But we must look for the best in one another, the best in our denomination, and seek the glory of God through the spread of his gospel through our entities. One of our church mission partners, the Pillar Network, provides our church an opportunity to partner and network for cooperative mission goals. While I served as a messenger in New Orleans, Tad Craig, our Associate Pastor of Youth and Education at Wilkesboro Baptist, was leading a team of students and adults working with a Pillar Network (SBC) church to minister to the masses in New York City. When Baptists find ways to cooperate for the purpose of spreading the gospel, we are at our best.

Work in Progress

While we are farther along in implementing abuse reforms, we still have a ways to go. The implementation team rolled out this website to assist churches in protecting the vulnerable in our congregations. We ought to be grateful for the commitment of our denomination to keep working on this issue. Like this issue and our individual lives, our denomination is a work in progress. Until we arrive perfected in heaven, we must remain attuned and vigilant spiritually. As such, here are some prayers for our denomination:

  • That we will remain steadfast theologically and continue to train pastors, missionaries, and theologians for the upbuilding of Christ’s church and the spread of the gospel.
  • That we will develop an attitude of grace, patience, and generosity toward each other. We are too often known for our squabbles and denominational in-fighting.
  • That we will pursue humility and Christ-like gentleness instead of hubris. May we seek only praise for the name of Christ rather than praise for our own names.
  • That we will be faithful and fruitful in finding the unreached peoples of the world and obeying Christ’s commission to make disciples of all nations. Pray especially for the 300 pioneer missionaries the IMB will send out.
  • That we will seek and find points of agreement and cooperation even with those who may hold different theological positions than we do.