In his book “Unchristian” David Kinnanman identifies the tendency of Christians to shelter themselves from the world as a reason that 20 and 30 somethings are not drawn to the Christian faith.  Though he looks at many different groups the one that struck me was what he identified as the intellectuals.  These are the people who are successful in their chosen fields and have engaged the world as they have furthered their careers.  His findings point out that “those with advanced educational and financial profiles – are more likely than average to express resistance and skepticism toward Christianity.”  These are the people that make up the target group that we at Church for All Nations have been called to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Christianity is described by them as judgmental, old-fashioned, out of touch with reality, and insensitive.  They see the church as unfriendly, untrustworthy and irrelevant to their lives.  This view is held not only by those outside of the church but by many of these people who are already in the church.

The sterotype of the church as being anti-intellectual is something  upscale adults and those striving to be must fight against.  Unless we change the image of the church we are asking these people to bridge a large credibility gap between their work and thier perception of the church.

When the church presents a watered down version of the gospel and simplifies its message to a few catch phrases and trite responses to hard questions its anti-intellectual approach turns this group of people off.  They do not come to the church with physical needs, they are not wrestling with issues of survival.  The needs of this group are far different.  They will embrace a Christianity that takes seriously the issues of the day and seeks to address the question of sin from a thought out position;  one that takes the struggles of life and does not try to simplify everything down to its lowest common demoninator.

If we are to bring about significant change in our society and the gospel message is to have maxium impact on our culture we need to bring the movers and shakers into the kingdom of God and once in we need to give them the tools to use their gifts and talent to bring about lasting change as the gospel works its way through society through their influence.  When we preach and practice a form of Christianity that pulls people from the world we do a disservice to the people around us who most need the gospel and we neglect the very commission the Lord gave to go into all the world and make disciples.

If vocation is an important part of our understand of our calling than we need to rethink that idea and begin to teach it and practice it in our churches.  We are to be in the world but not of it.  Too many of us want to withdraw from the world and we view our faith as a private matter that has little or no bearing on our lives outside of the church building.  The upscale outside our doors looks at this and says why bother.  What good is a Chritianity that has little or no relevance to life outside of the building?

One of the ministries we have started is Music Forum and the Stoop concert series.  We want to bring together competent Christians in music and create for them a place where they can showcase there art.  We don’t want to play to the Christian community by have them preform sacred music, but rather to perform good music and draw the non-Christian into contact, in a non-threatening way, with the church.  If we honestly share a love for good music with those outside the church there is a natural entrance point for the start of a relationship and a conversation about our faith.

Beauty is of God.  Cuture is of God.  Music is of God.  The problem is that creation is fallen.  As a redemptive community we want to redeem music, art, and culture and return it to the church where it traditionally always was.  In that way we might win some for the kingdom.