Mission vs. Extraction

One struggle I have as a youth minister is understanding, and helping my student's parent's understand the difference between living in the world and being of the world. H. Richard Riebuhr wrote a great essay on the 5 positions of Christ and culture. But to boil it down, I would say their are just two.

1) Extraction "Help! The culture is coming! Run and Hide!"
Here are some results of extracting oneself from culture:

• Circling the wagons, removing oneself from the institutions of culture, such as schools and community organizations
• An inability to communicate with those who exist within mainstream culture
• Crappy knock of "christian art." Here's an example: "Does your child enjoy the evil twisted Satan music of Metallica that will send them straight to hell? Try this instead: It's called 'Jesus goes Metal.' It sounds like Metallica, only with sub-par musicians writing uninspired parodies of Master of Puppets, using only scripture and right-wing political metaphors."

2) Mission "As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" Paul at Mars Hill, Acts 17

When a missionary goes into a country, their first assignment is NOT to convert people, it's to learn the language. In order to demonstrate the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is necessary to express it within the local language and culture. Paul demonstrated this by quoting a PAGAN POET to explain God to the Athenians.

God has not called us to remove ourselves from culture to be like him. Think of how Jesus did it: He became a first-century Jew! We could not know who God was unless he had become a missionary!

God doesn't want you to run away from your world. He has put you there so you can do the same thing he did- become a part of your culture so you can save your culture. As long as we circle the wagons, abandon our community, hold up in our churches and WE WILL NEVER BE THE PEOPLE GOD HAS CALLED US TO BE.

In the future, we'll talk about practical ways to be a missionary.