Tag Archives: culture

Nov 16 2020

Individualism and the Kingdom – A Clash of Cultures: 'Monday Morning Musings - November 16, 2020'

At the foundation of Western thought, political and religious, are certain presuppositions about the supposedly self-evident nature of human existence as “individuals.” Individualism as a belief system referring to the “autonomous self,” is not a value found in Christ’s kingdom. Ephesians 4:25 says: we are “of one another, members.” That is, our existence is social. The life of Christ and his kingdom is only fully experienced socially. This is threatening to deeply held Western cultural values, but none-the-less, Christianity 101.

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Copyright 2020. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Jun 7 2016

The Cult of Success: 'Learning to Dream Small'

Dream Small: How to Have Success in Ministry

Dream Small: How to Have “Success” in Ministry

If you have spent any time at all in Western/Evangelical/Charismatic Christianity, you have heard things like these:

  • God is big, you need to dream big.
  • God has big dreams for you.
  • Your faith needs to be big.
  • You need to be a dream chaser.
  • Your faith is too small.
  • You are destined to be a world changer.
  • Overcome your ministry limitations.
  • Take your ministry to the “next level” . . . and so on. 

American cultural values of success: size (numbers in attendance), finances, and fame (sff) –bigger is better–more is “God,”  have spread through Western (American) popular Evangelicalism like a bad outbreak of athlete’s foot fungus in a men’s locker room.

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Oct 30 2015

The Nones and Dones – Part Two: 'A Tidal Wave of Change'

The Nones and Dones - Frustrated with Church and Gone

The Nones and Dones – Frustrated with Church and Gone

My friend, Greg Albrecht, provided the following. It’s a fascinating, and sobering, postscript to my previous blog on “Nones and Dones: “The number of unchurched people in America would make the 8th most populous country in the world!”

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Feb 5 2015

Rat Park or Rat Cage?: 'Attending Church, Still Alone, and Living in Misery '

Rat Park or Rat Cage - Attending Church, But Still Alone

Rat Park or Rat Cage – Attending Church, But Still Alone

Dr. Bruce Alexander of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC reconsidered a famous lab experiment done in the 1970s involving addiction. He pondered that the presumptions behind the science could be flawed and incomplete. The scientific experiment in the 1970s involved a lone rat in a rat cage with two water bottles. One was laced with cocaine and the other just water.  In this well-known experiment, it was allegedly proven that nine out of ten rats in the rat cage will go back, again and again, to the cocaine bottle until they killed themselves. The conclusion taken from this experiment was that the rats were hopelessly chemically addicted to the point of suicide. Not so fast.

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Dec 20 2014

Lydia – Seller of Purple: 'Cultural Insights for Apostolic Mission'

Lydia - Seller of Purple

Lydia – Seller of Purple

Acts 16:14 speaks of a woman named Lydia who was a “seller of purple” who responded to Paul’s preaching and offered to host Paul and his team in her home. Lydia’s gender, her being a “seller of purple,” and her means to be able to accommodate Paul and his band are significant to understanding the implications of this passage.

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Jun 30 2014

Revising Revival – Part 1: '2 Chr. 7:14 in Context'

2 Chr. 7:14 in Context

Revising Revival – Part 1. 2 Chr. 7:14 in Context

“Revival” is a charged term. It can mean different things to different people. When egos, identities, money, and insecurity get into the “revival business,” things go unhealthy quickly. In this series we will look at 2 Chr. 7:14 in CONTEXT and from a NT perspective. It has nothing to do with “revival.”

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Mar 31 2014

Noah: The Movie and the Christian Right – My Contribution to the Noise

There’s lots of “hubbNoahs_Ark_2ub” in the culture on the Noah movie. Here’s my contribution to the noise.

I think evangelical Christians that get all flustered on the Noah movie,  just need climb off the wall, take a deep long breath, take their blood pressure medication, spend some time in a nice relaxing sauna, and go home and pet their dogs. There are far more important things in this life to give our attention to than a product of Hollywood.

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Mar 17 2014

Rethinking Matthew 18 Conflict Resolution: 'The Importance of Context and Culture'

I like to joke that I would view my life worthwhile if my tombstone read:

“He got them to pay attention to context and culture!”

Matthew 18 conflict resolution

Rethinking Matthew 18 Conflict Resolution

Working a crowd into an “amen-ing” frenzy with a proof–text having no biblically legitimate application is a widely practiced and learnable skill. A shoe salesman’s persuasion, with Tony Robbins’ charm, and a breathy evangelist’s passion can entrench a good bit of doctrinal and methodological nonsense into the Body of Christ. Accuracy sometimes suffers in direct proportion to heart rate and goose bumps: an adrenaline rush being equivalent to “the anointing” or “the Spirit moving!”  Mmmmmm . . . maybe . . . maybe not . . .

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It's Just a Bag of Beans
Jan 30 2014

It’s Just a Bag of Beans: 'Bible Knowledge Without Application'

The individual goal in this life is transformation into the image of Christ so that the life of Christ might be manifest in the earth. The goal is not “doctrine and Bible study.” Few things are more inoculating against the manifestation of the life and ethics of Christ, than listening to sermon upon sermon without any correlated obedience to the one we heard last week. It is like collecting coffee beans and believing you have a cup of coffee. We don’t. We have a potential cup of coffee.

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May 14 2013

Equipper’s Survival Guide

PressureSpiritual abuse is like finding a coin in your backyard. There are two sides to it, and they are both dirty.

I certainly have no time for ambitious, authority-addled manipulators who use and abuse the ekklesia in the name of God to satisfy their own need for greatness: pimping the saints for their own needs, milking them of their time, talent, and treasure for ego-validating dreams and plans.

Yet, there are also thousands of humble, self-sacrificing, and faithful men and women who tirelessly serve the ekklesia in love, who struggle to keep their sanity as they face the onslaughts of the adversary, their own brokenness, and alas, miserable treatment by the ones they serve: being pimped for other’s needs and being told it is “serving the body.” Sacrifice for others? Yes. Pimping? No.

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