August 4, 2011 Notes

Notes from Dmin seminar: August 4, 2011

There's a mandate to create culture at large and culture on the small scale. I think that until the large shift in culture takes place (i.e. iphone), we consistently create culture on the small scale. So we "have dominion" over that sphere of influence that we're placed in and we cultivate the world around us. It's not one or the other...it's both and. Another large difference is the way we create culture. God is the only one that creates Ex Nihilo ("out of nothing"). We recreate from chaos and reshape it into order. We do this by speaking the Word of the Gospel and by living this out wherever we are.

http://project127.com A community of faith type thinking that takes the 900 homeless children and the churches in the area get together and say, "hey...this isn't right. What can we do about it?" And what happens is that they see many social workers come to know Jesus. And i'm not saying this is the only way to create culture...we don't just do things just to do things. We go about changing culture because it is the right response to the Gospel. What about our city? What are you personally doing as a response to the Gospel? Some times it's big...some times it's small (like throwing a birthday party for a 13 year old girl that has never had one). So what about the abortion debate? What if we won that debate? But do we care about those who are living? What are we personally doing about the kids/teens in our midst?

So where God has planted us is at 900 Brogden. That's our garden. That's our place of cultivation. Now the interesting is that our people come from all over the place and we send them back in. Now we need to think about how to cultivate our "garden" (where God has placed us). How do we reach the people around us? How do we reach the people in our neighborhoods? What do we do? What's our goal? What's our culture?

Sociology: Before, everyone from the cities (as they become more wealthy or racially motivated) left and went to the suburbs to "raise a family" or to "get away". But what happened after awhile "other people" started to move into the burbs and so they either went to the ex. burbs or people moved back into the city. Gentrification begins to take place back in the city.

Question: Where do we create culture? The church building or where the people are? We ultimately have the church gathered and the church distributed. And how do we allow our people to share their victories?