River's Edge Community Church

Wednesday is a day of worship, a day where we give praise to our God for his amazing love and grace.

My prayer goal for this week is __________________________________________.
Our goal for last week was _____________________________________________.


Let’s pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.


Read the following passage from Acts 17 where Paul speaks to a group of philosophical intellectuals in Athens (note: this is one of the key texts that models cultural engagement and the need for relevancy)
     Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
     “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”


Reading to Worship
The normal response to encountering God is worship. When that doesn’t happen, our first question must be to ask why. Why isn’t our heart moved when we hear his voice in his Word? Do a heart-check to see if there is anything blocking your way to worship as you read this passage.

Using some words and thoughts from our passage, answer one of the following questions as we prepare our hearts and minds to worship (please make these statements as personal to you as possible).

• What strikes you as you read this passage?
• How would you describe Paul’s method here?
• How do you feel about his method?
• How does Paul demonstrate that he understood Greek culture in this passage?
• What “secular” tools did Paul use to communicate Christ to these people?
• Where did Paul find common ground with these Athenians?
• What pastoral characteristics does Paul display here?
• How could this passage lead you to worship?

Question:
In order to engage our culture like Paul engaged his, what do we need to do?


A Thought to Ponder
"Because we are commanded by God to form and reform culture, Christians have to be actively engaged with culture: studying it, discerning positive and negative aspects, and working to redeem it. We are to be in the world but not of it, working to restrain evil and advance redemptive potentials. We are called to be salt in the world, working to enrich culture and preserve life-affirming aspects. We are also called to be a light to show the way for cultural development, uncovering and disentangling forces for good and evil, and redirecting unhealthy or destructive patterns toward principles in line with loving God and serving our neighbor. And the culture we are called to form and reform, to move toward redemption, includes even popular culture."  (William D. Romanowski)


The One Thing
Cultural engagement requires that we are involved in our culture. It requires that we invest ourselves to some degree in the “common ground” that we share with the people around us. And being Christ followers, it requires that we think Christianly about all of this. As such, we must remember that "all truth is God’s truth" and "all beauty is God’s beauty" and that everything we do as Christ followers, from digging ditches to partaking communion, is holy and is to be received with thanksgiving.

Today’s assignment is to choose one element of our culture that you enjoy (from anything in either high, popular, or even low culture) and to write down seven things about it for which you are thankful as a Christ follower. Think Christianly about this cultural form and then use those thoughts to formulate why you value this activity. Enjoy!


Closing Prayer
Abba Father, pour out your love upon us so that we may love you and love our neighbor as ourselves. Give us wisdom that we may engage our world with your truth. Give us compassion that we may speak with tenderness. Give us courage that we may always be faithful and give us hearts of faith that we may seek your glory in everything we do. Today, we give ourselves to you, body, soul and spirit and ask that you advance your kingdom in us and through us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.