Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof Culture

Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof CultureChanging

Changing

1Understanding Culture:

The Starting Point*How God created each person

Gen. 1:26-27; Eccl. 3:11; Rom. 2:15

*How God designed mankindActs 17:24-28

1Understanding Culture:

The Starting Point• God created everything and everyone• All humans have the same ‘father’• God determines when and where we

live• God’s purpose in His design is that

people would seek and hopefully find Him

2What is Culture?• Artifacts, institutions and conventions by which

people define, sustain and enrich their lives

• Our non-biological heritage

• A group’s attempt to provide meaning and structure to living

• The social “soup” we swim in

Local CultureLocal Culture

Family RelationshipsFamily Relationships Courtship * Authority * Time Courtship * Authority * Time Social Structure * CommerceSocial Structure * Commerce

Manners * WorkManners * Work

Obvious Culture

Clothing * Language * Food Celebrations * Stories * Music

Art

Foundational Culture(worldview)

God * Death * Purpose Morality * Nature * History

Cosmology

Obvious Obvious CultureCulture

Local CultureLocal Culture

Foundation Culture Foundation Culture (Worldview)

2What is Culture?

3Why Cultures Change• Time• Internal Reasons

– Poverty, prosperity, war– Social/spiritual transformation

• External Reasons– Collision with other cultures/ideas

4The Christian Perspective• Christ and Culture (Relationship)

– Christ Transcends Culture– Christ Trumps Culture– Christ Transforms Culture

• Christ and Culture (History)– Missions (Acts 14:8-20; 15:1-35)– Bible translation

4The Christian Perspective• Christ-centered Education

– “. . . must emphasize the cost of discipleship, the absolute claim of God over our entire life, the necessity of a faith that issues forth in obedience, and our belonging to an alternative culture shaped by the kingdom of Jesus.”

5The Christian Response• Appreciate/Discern your own culture• Appreciate/Discern other cultures• God’s Purpose -> My Purpose

– Common Grace– Saving Grace

Making Sense Making Sense of Cultureof CultureChanging

Changing