No More Village Thinking
The Battle for Hearts and Minds - Part 2
'We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devil's strongholds.' 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
During the recent invasion of Iraq, certain cities took on a special importance, and not just because they were centres of population or industry. These cities were important to both sides because they were strongholds.
A stronghold has been defined as, 'a centre set up in support of a cause.' Even those who opposed the war recognised that these cities were centres defending the regime of a dictator in the face of attack.
As I followed the events of this conflict in Iraq, I was reminded of some of the things it will take for us to really impact nations with the gospel. (I'm not coming out either for or against the war here; I'm simply suggesting that we can learn lessons for the even more deadly spiritual fight going on in our age.)
Perhaps the most important lesson is this: An invading army cannot co-exist or compromise with a stronghold.
In the Iraq conflict, it would have been futile and ultimately disastrous for the invading forces to simply form little clusters in the desert, hoping to take the country without contact with the strongholds. Strongholds won't go away just because you ignore them! In the end, the advancing army has to face the power and the influence of the strongholds.
Genesis 1:26-28 reveals that the first calling God placed upon the shoulders of humankind was a command to influence the world. Influence is hardwired into the human condition. One way or the other, influence will flow. Either we will influence the godless, egocentric culture around us or it will most certainly force us into its mould.
All around us everyday, there is a battle for influence going on. Light vs darkness, flesh vs spirit, temporal vs eternal, spin vs truth, political correctness vs prophetic correctness.
Either we will invent the future or someone else's vision of the future will re-invent us. In the end, either we will take the strongholds or the strongholds will take us!
One of the strongholds we must overcome is what I call 'Village Thinking'. This one relates more to the mentality of the church than the thinking of the world around it.
In a traditional village or small town, the community is self-sufficient. What it can't suppy for itself, using the skills, materials and services available within it, it either does without or imports once a week on market day.
Today, long an adjunct to the town, the market has now swallowed the town whole.
People no longer look just within a geographical locale to find services, products and resources. Often, they use modern media such as the Internet to search an area much wider than their own hometown. They do this to find friendships and interest groups, too.
Instead of the market being part of the town, reliant on the town, the town is part of the market and reliant on the market.
The church is a truly prophetic group of people; it is able to see the present in the light of God's declared future. We can and should be the most forward-minded people on earth, because we serve a future minded Lord, who always had his eye on the glory ahead (Heb 12:2).
Yet, we are so often held back in this role because we think only in terms of our local church - when should think in terms of God's global Kingdom. Or, because we think only of our influence in terms of geography when we should also be targeting spheres of influence.
In Acts 16 and 17, Paul launched his mission to Western culture. When he did so, he used a two-part strategy. One half involved the planting and establishing of churches in major urban centres, cities like Philippi, Thessalonika, Corinth and Athens. He looked for geographical centres that would give the quickest spread to the gospel and build a church model for surrounding regions.
But Paul also targeted the spheres of influence of his time: the areas of society that helped to shape people's thinking.
The first people saved under Paul in Western Europe each represented a major area through which Europe would touch the world through the centuries to follow. There was an international merchant, a civil servant, a politician and a whole group of philosophers, lawyers, academics, educators and sponsors of the arts (cf Acts 16:14, 29-36; 17:18, 34). Other community leaders were also saved in the first days (cf 17:4).
Think about it: commerce, politics, bureacracy, philosophy, law, education and the arts - they're all areas where Western thought has shaped world systems right up to the present day.
There were 45 million Internet servers in the world as of early 2000, and 150-200 million Internet users per day - many more today. The unique thing about the Internet, compared to other media, is that people use it 24 hours a day. The most visited sites on the web today are those that feature so-called 'adult content' - ie. pornography and gambling.
Does the church need a vibrant presence on the Internet? Yes!
And we need much more than church homepages that offer little more than advertizing of the week's events. We need high-powered research sites, and community chat rooms and online, anonymous 'pre-counselling' where people can start to get help with life problems before they commit to face-to-face help sessions.
And what about the other media? Some studies suggest that people are exposed to as many as 1600 commercial messages, in one form or another, every day. In some cases, it could be a lot more. But even if ifs only half as many, that's still 50 an hour for 16 hours - nearly one per minute.
Does the church need a colourful presence in the mainstream (as distinct from the 'Christian') media? Most definitely yes! But most of the time, we've been too local-minded to see beyond the possibilities of pulpits-on-TV. We've not presented art that is good enough to be recognized in the wider marketplace.
And what of education, another of the major spheres of influence in today's world? Denis Waitley has said that 'Knowledge is the frontier of tomorrow.' Peter Drucker, the management expert says, 'Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement...'
Does the church need to establish a place in the world of education (including adult education)? Most definitely.
We could talk about politics, the arts and many other spheres of influence that most of the church has largely left untouched in recent times.
We're sometimes so busy measuring our influence against other churches like us - comparing ourselves with ourselves, as Paul put it (2 Corinthians 10:12-14) - that we don't see the bigger picture.
The world needs strong local churches that will recognise the enormous opportunities for influence that are before them, not just in terms of their geographical locality but in terms of the impact they could have in the wider marketplace.
And churches that see the possibility of working with other like-minded churches in close alliance, so that what one church can't do by virtue of its size and resources, several churches can.
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