A Few Important Elements of Complex Culture

In the latest blog, we began a conversation about what to name the new realities confronting our ministry. My suggestion was complex culture. It is possible to observe how most of the layers of complex culture have been added or expanded over the last half century. The following are a few of those changes:

·         The Sunday school, no longer the local church’s main outreach tool, is now ministering almost exclusively to churched children.

·         There is an increase of cultural, linguistic, and racial diversity due to immigration. Immigrants are coming from almost everywhere but Europe, bringing cultural and linguistic diversity into almost every neighborhood and town.

·         The growth of knowledge is spawning new technological and cultural paradigms, more and more rapidly. Any given generation grows up in a new paradigm, which has different cultural values and preferences than the previous one.

·         There is an explosion of religious diversity. “New Age” is essentially a folk religion revival including the worship of nature. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many additional minor religions are now represented.

·         Ideologies like secularism and libertarianism tend to harden ideological lines, making meaningful dialogue more daunting. The Separation of Church and State debate is an example.

·         The broadcast media have largely displaced the Church as the main source of values in our culture.

·         Biblical literacy is on the wane. Most people no longer consider the Bible to be the source of absolute truth. It can be intimidating to engage people in spiritual conversation with whom we have less and less in common. Those we do, often interpret it as our desire to “force our religion” on them.

·         Lifestyle diversity has become a principal expression of individualism. Extreme sports, haircuts, tattoos, clothing, gay and lesbian lifestyles, and multiple forms of family, are just a few examples.

The bottom line is that today’s ministry environment, even in suburbia and small towns,  is a study in complexity.    If we truly wish to reconnect our churches with our communities, we need to accept and address this new phenomenon called complex culture.                               

What do you think?

What does complex culture look like in your community?

Can you think of additional things that you would add to complex culture?