Emerging Models and Culture Shaping

by Jon Talbert

The rising tide of an emerging cultural shift has caught many in the faith community off guard and has laid to waste the forms of evangelicalism that proved successful to previous generations. Popular culture with its postmodern mindset no longer sees church playing a significant role in the social order, and for many, church has become completely irrelevant. “Many church leaders” one writer notes, “are losing touch with our emerging culture, and the result is the drastic dropout rate of younger people in their churches, as well as the lack of people from emerging generations coming in.” (Kimball/They Like Jesus not the Church p14)

Emerging culture has its presuppositions about meaning and purpose, as well as truth and faith that have been formed by various channels of culture and the collective voices of society. Francis Shaffer writes that, “An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, and inner world. Then having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it.” (Shaffer/ How should we then live pg 19)While many in the church argue the validity of a global paradigm shift, others, especially the business sector, have embraced it out of necessity. Businesses like Google, eBay, and Apple have not only benefitted financially from emerging culture on the marketplace, but, in fact have actually played a significant role in shaping some of the sectors of this culture shift. In his best seller The World is Flat, Thomas Freidman qualifies a cultural shift as “Flattening” He puts it this way,
“I am convinced that the flattening of the world, if it continues, will be seen in time as one of those fundamental shifts or inflection points, like Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, the rise of the nation-state, or the Industrial Revolution – each of which, in its day… produced changes in the role of individuals, the role and form of governments, the ways business was done and wars were fought, the role of women, the forms religion and art took, and the way science and research were conducted, not to mention the political labels that we as a civilization have assigned to ourselves and to our enemies.” (Freidman/The World is Flat pg 48)

It is in this very shift that fresh expressions of spirituality have emerged and organic communities of faith are sprouting across a landscape that still bears the shadows of empty churches that once thrived in another era. New language and forms of faith gatherings have adapted to cultural needs, and many leaders have returned to ancient ideas and rituals that are rooted deep in the life and mission of Jesus and the early church. Along with these new forms of church comes the idea of culture shaping. Creating, shaping, and redeeming culture as followers of Jesus who function and excel within the channels of culture.