Mid-week Prayer Focus
Cultivating Kingdom Culture
Pastor Wes
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Pastors from other Baptist churches in Transylvania county have been getting together regularly on Mondays for the past couple months. We’re doing our best to get to know each other, and build better relationships amongst the churches within Transylvania County. Each week, a different Pastor has been sharing his testimony. The pastor that shared this last week mentioned he came from a rough family background, but that when he hung around people from the local church, they were so different and loving, that he couldn’t help but want to hang around them. Eventually he made a decision for the Lord, but it was a direct result of experiencing the love, joy, friendliness, and engagement from church people.
Now this is the kind of experience you would hope for and would expect from a fellowship of Christ followers. But, unfortunately, this is often not the case. I have heard many times that the local culture within the mountains, is a somewhat closed culture, and unless you were born and raised here, it is often difficult to be accepted into circles of people. Some trace it back to the moonshining days when families had to be very careful of outsiders and anyone who might be a threat to their economy and way of providing for their family. Now while it’s important to understand that this is probably a very valid cultural reality, I personally have experienced pockets of local believers meeting together, here in Western North Carolina, who have defied the traditional cultural boundaries, and instead of being slightly shy or standoffish, have been extremely warm, friendly, engaging, authentic, and outgoing.
I’ve experienced churches where in between the small group time and the worship service, I couldn’t even make it down the hallway without almost every single person engaging with me in some way, saying “Wes, thanks for sharing that, I appreciated hearing that, or that song really touched me thanks, or Wes- how are you really doing, or can I ask you to pray for this?” And it’s not that I need a pat on the back as an individual or as a pastor- I don’t want someone telling me it was a great message if it really wasn’t- but I’m just trying to describe the type of interactive, joyful, engaging, open, authentic, cross pollination of believers that was occurring. And it was beautiful. Instead of mountain culture, the church had taken on what I would like to term as Kingdom culture.
Now, I know there are glimpses of that type of engagement taking place in some of our churches within the county, and as a church, Glady Branch has done a great job and grown a lot in that area- but as a general statement, I would venture to say that the Kingdom culture I described is probably not the norm for most churches in Transylvania county. Rather what you would find are churches that probably more closely reflect a colder, more closed, shy, hesitant approach to those not within their family or long-time friend circle. Maybe if there is a visitor, in a best-case scenario, everyone has been trained to go and greet the visitor, but even if that visitor continually returns, and becomes a “member” of the church, there will probably still be limits to the level of engagement that the visitor receives.
But then how do we explain how some churches are able to get past this, and break out of their predominant culture, and into a strong Kingdom Culture? Is it easier for a church within the city or close to the city to reflect more of a Kingdom Culture than a church fellowship in a more rural area? Maybe. Is it easier for a church that is made up of many transplant families to reflect more of this Kingdom Culture than a church primarily composed of generational families? Probably.
I challenged our Monday group of pastors with this subject, and there were about 12 of us there, and they each identified with having experienced the closed mountain culture, and many had probably actually never even experienced a strong Kingdom Culture within a church. One of the pastors thought that perhaps it has nothing to do with city verses rural or transplants verses long standing families, but that at the heart of the matter there could perhaps be a spiritual problem.
Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps we’ve fallen out of love with Jesus, perhaps we don’t spend enough time with Him for His character to rub off on us. Think about it- Jesus was the guy that never left someone unnoticed. He went out of His way to engage with, converse with, interact with the poorest of poor or the most insignificant little child, all the way up to the rich and powerful and the most studious of religious leaders- and everyone in between. Even when He was tired. And this Jesus guy, who lived like that, is the guy we’re supposed to be mimicking. We bear the name “Christians” which means “little Christs.” When we choose to follow Him, as Paul says, we become a new creation: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor. 5:17) The culture we were born into, becomes secondary to the Kingdom culture we adopt when we become Christ followers. There are many other verses in the bible that talk about our new identity in Christ. Galatians 3:28 says of Christ followers “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Now, Paul is not advocating for gender fluidity, or for forgetting who you are or where you came from, or for loving your family and close friends less, or for changing your personality- but there exists rather a oneness, a new togetherness- culture-family that we are adopted into when we choose to follow Jesus- and previous distinctions and cultural definitions become secondary. There is a certain degree to which as we grow, we should be becoming more like Jesus. We should be noticing people better, we should be more out-going, we should realize the potential our words have for bringing good into someone else’s life. We need to stop waiting for someone to engage us, and instead start being the initiators of conversation and engagement with others. I believe we need to work on this within the church, but also outside the church.
Please don’t make the excuse saying, “I’m an introvert, not an extravert”- listen, I personally am an introvert. It takes work for me to be with people and engage with them. You might say, well, how are you a pastor then? I believe whether you are a pastor or not, introvert or extravert- as followers of Jesus, we are called to His Kingdom Culture. To cultivate it, to work on creating an environment wherever we are, that is a reflection of His Kingdom and character. Whether amongst the tribal indigenous jungle cultures in South America, the formal traditional cultures in some Asian countries, the hardened/cold culture of Russia, the relaxed cultures within the Caribbean, the serious and passionate cultures in the middle east, the shy mountain cultures of Western North Carolina- believers from these people groups should all reflect the Kingdom Culture of Jesus.
Will you join me in praying for our people group here in Transylvania County? Will you pray with me that God’s people would cultivate more of a Kingdom Culture than a local culture? And I pray that you- as you watch this video or read these words- that you, no matter what your culture, upbringing, or personality is, that you would fall more in love with Jesus, and reflect His life breathing personality wherever you go.