Engaging the City

When I was 15 I had the opportunity to go to Ireland for the summer on a missions trip with Teen Missions International. It was an awesome growth experience and defining trip, but those stories are for next week when we talk about how to REPRESENT Christ to the World. I want to talk to you about what stood out to me when I came home from the trip. I left at the beginning of the summer, leaving family, friends and my familiar hometown. While I was gone, a lot of changes took place.

You know that feeling when you’ve been gone for a long time and your nearing your home. You begin to see the familiar and the excitement of getting home grows. I was getting close to home, a few exits away on the highway, when I noticed changes. It didn’t look familiar anymore. This wasn’t right. What was going on? Where are the familiar houses and trees? You see, there was a building project in my hometown that summer. An entire shopping center, including a Wal-Mart and Lowes moved in. It was so different, and I was conflicted on how I should feel about it. I wanted the old familiarity, but I was excited for the new opportunities.

On a much deeper level, when we come to Christ everything changes. When we look at the City in which we live we sense a struggle between the old familiar and the new. How we respond to this struggle will determine how well we REPRESENT Christ to the City.

Monastic Reaction

For some, their reaction to the struggle is to pull out and exit the old familiar. They want to avoid the temptations of the past and they identify the familiar with their life without Christ. They gather in a holy huddle with like-minded believers and begin to develop a new community based on their beliefs and skepticism of the old. The benefits are found in not having to deal with old temptations, at least not in the same form. Creating a bubble to overprotect each other and to build a refuge from the world.

The problem we find in this movement is that these believers lose any influence on the city. They become legalistic in their lifestyle and they lose touch with the surrounding communities. A self-righteous attitude, the “leaven of the Pharisees” that Jesus warned us about.

Licentious Reaction

Some run to the familiar and claim their freedom in Christ means they are to join the city in what’s going on. “Everything is permissible” and “I want to be authentic” become the mantra of these follower. They desire to be relevant and current with the city. The benefit is they have a lot of connections with unbelievers, they have a pulse on the city and they often are instrumental in justice movements.

The danger here is they have retreated so far back into the familiar that they look nothing like Jesus. The Light that is to Shine to the city has dimmed.

I had a friend once who bought into this lie. He and I were sitting at coffee shop discussing how we are to interact with nonbelievers in our sphere of influence.

Let me describe my friend for a moment. Both of us being graduates of Bible College, we were used to discussing theology and such. Upon graduation, I entered into the pastoral ministry. He continued on in a pursuit of philosophy and dead end jobs. He had recently moved in with a girl, whom he occasionally would sleep with. He also had girlfriend whom he was sleeping with too. His vocabulary had changed to resemble that of a sailor. His politics had evolved to match mainline liberalism.

Back to our conversation: I asked him if he ever shared Christ with his friends. His response was, “No that would be inauthentic!”

“Do you want your friends to know Christ?” I asked.

He replied with, “Yes, I do.”

“But you won’t bring Him up in conversation?”

“No,” he said, “that would be manipulating my friends.”

“So how do you expect them to know about Jesus?” I asked.

“They will see that I am different and ask me what makes me different, that’s when I can tell them about Jesus” he said.

“How are you different then them?”

The unfortunate truth is that this is not a isolated situation. Many have forgotten the path of righteousness and think they are “engaging” culture when in fact they are surrendering to culture. Only when we live in holiness does our lives give credibility to what we believer.

The Jeremiah 29 Principle

So if we are not to become legalistic monks, or licentious sell outs, what remains? In Jeremiah 29 we enter a conversation very similar to this one. Some were saying the Jewish exiles should just move into the city of Babylon and become Babylonians. Others were saying they should stay outside the city and make their own commune.

Let me paraphrase what God said. “You are going to be here for a while. Engage the city, but keep your spiritual distinctiveness. Seek to build up the city and your neighbors. As I bless you for your faithfulness to me, I will bless the city. Live among them and reflect my presence to them.”

The struggle between the old familiar and new life is a constant (see Romans 7). Instead of running away from the tension, or giving up, we need to live in the tension. We need to live in the reality that we have died to former things, we live in Christ and we proclaim to others this new life.

How can we do this?

In your schools, in your jobs, in your sporting teams, in your recreation, whatever you do seek to REPRESENT Christ. You will impact your city by being the best student, worker, athlete, musician, etc you can be. When you seek to honor Christ first in these areas you will see an impact for the Gospel. Your life can cause a ripple effect across the city. You do this in partnership with your local church and other Christians in your school and community. Keep the Gospel first and look for ways to share it.

When you work against injustice, don’t forget to proclaim the Gospel. When your feeding the homeless, share that in Christ they can have a home forever with Jesus. When you care for the orphan, share how in Christ they have a Heavenly Father who will never leave them. When you care for the abused, share that in Christ there is healing, fullness and purity that cannot be taken from them. In every hurting life the answer is Jesus Christ. Reaching one person for Jesus will impact the city.

Don’t run away. Don’t assimilate. Purposefully engage the city with your eyes fixed on Jesus and the Gospel on your lips. Stand firm in your faith and have open arms to your neighbors. If this sounds new or revolutionary, it’s not. It’s a message that is about 2,000 years old and was exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ. Spend some time in the Gospels and see how Jesus demonstrated how we are to engage the culture for the glory of God.