Tag Archives: leading in todays culture

Christianity as Both

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I’ve been writing a lot about what Christian leadership might look like in our current context.  When I say current context I mean mainly within the American culture and Church.  Of course part of the problem is that in America there is no “the Church” per se, but that is something to be addressed at a later time.

We’ve been talking about leading with all of Jesus within the right narrative and aiming at Christ not lesser goods.  Today I want to tackle a really important idea that can help us actually do that.

One of the things that happens all the time in the current cultural conversation over Christianity is that we tend to set things that appear opposed against each other.  Or another approach is to take two Christian ideas and say that we need to balance them.

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Lead With The Truth Of Jesus (Christian Leadership In Today’s Culture Part 4)

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Today I want to continue a series about what it looks like to lead as a Christian in today’s culture.  We first looked at the importance of starting with looking at our own heart and what we are really all about.  Then we looked at the importance of defining and living out of the narrative of God’s story vs. narratives dictated by current culture.  Next we took an inward turn to look at taking care of our own business first.

Today I want to look at leading with Jesus and His truth.

Now that sounds sort of obvious.  But I honestly don’t see a lot of it right now.  What I see is a lot of Christians using Jesus to back up their side.  I also see a lot of Christians saying true things about Jesus, but only the parts that they want to virtue signal with.  I also think there are a lot of Christians who are sort of fixated on a particular part of Jesus and are just trying to follow that one part.

Finally I think there are people who are trying to show that Jesus is relevant to all that is going on right now in an attempt to win particular people over, or perhaps keep particular people from leaving Christianity.

But frankly this is creating confusion and it’s all hijacking Jesus.  Now understand I’m not accusing everyone, or anyone in particular, of meaning to do that (although there are certainly people that are). It also risks splitting the body of Christ in places it just doesn’t have to be split.

What often ends up happening is that Jesus ends up being the support for a truth rather than the truth itself.

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Which Story Are You Living Out Of? (Christian Leadership In Today’s Culture Part 2)

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In a previous post I began to offer a conversation about what actual Christian leadership might look like right now in our current American Culture.  This is an ongoing conversation I’m having with some people and I’m sort of sharing out if you will.  I want to be clear that I’m not pretending to have all of the right answers.  But I think that we need to think about this because what I see is a large lack of leadership out there.

In part one I said the first thing we need to understand is that the most important battle is within.  It all starts there.  It’s not out there somewhere in some fight against the ever easy to blame “they”.  It’s the battle in our own hearts to follow Jesus and actually be about His Kingdom first.

Today I want to think about a second important thing.  That is this:  What narrative are you living in and out of?

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