Main Message

One of the main strategies favoured by many churches in the West has not worked. Our attempts to make church and Christianity relevant to modern, secular culture have not only failed. They have backfired. Churches have been seduced by that very culture they have tried to reach. It is a culture of radical individualism which is, in fact, a new version of an old enemy of the Christian faith – Gnosticism. Mark Sayers, in his book, Disappearing Church (2016) argues that our focus should be less on cultural relevance and more on gospel resilience. This is the way of discipleship to Jesus. It is a way that challenges the individualism of our age as it requires the death of self and the enthroning of God in our lives. It is a narrow way, a countercultural path. Those who follow this way become a creative minority at work in the ‘corrosive soil’ of the surrounding culture. The witness of such minorities, who live faithfully and counterculturally, has always been how God has ‘replenished culture.’ It is not an easy way. It requires faithfulness to the truth of the gospel but also engagement with the culture. It also requires resilience.