Hunter Beaumont

Continued from Contend and Contextualize, Part 1. Even though many in the church today fall into the ditch of under-contending and over-contextualizing, I suspect that many Resurgence readers will struggle more to stay out of the right-wing ditch…

Over-contending/Under-contextualizing

We can’t avoid choices about how to “do church”—evangelism strategies, musical style, liturgy, preaching method, and which leaders to put out front. In making these decisions, we become culturally close to some people and culturally distant from others. So the question is not are we contextualizing, but who are we contextualizing for?

Who Are You Contextualizing For?

One of the strongest temptations church planters face is to contextualize for the wing of Christendom where we feel most comfortable—Reformed, Charismatic, High Church, Bible Church, Baptist, Presbyterian, or refugees jaded on all of them—instead of the broader culture around us. So we gather our flavor of Christian but don’t make converts to the gospel. As a parachuting church planter from another world (Arkansas) who is very much at home at a Reformed theology conference, I have found this the most difficult temptation to master.

One Gospel, Different Methods

Another temptation is to only have one way of preaching the gospel (usually “the right way”). This works fine when the culture isn’t too complex. But every week, I preach to a mixed bag of progressive West Coasters, transplanted Bible Belters, liberated Yankees, and refugees from Kansas/Nebraska/Wyoming who wanted to come in out of the wind. Their spiritual histories and levels of familiarity with the gospel (not to mention attitudes and accents) are quite diverse. It’s here that I’ve again found Paul’s example helpful. In the synagogue he might have started with, “Open your Bibles to Isaiah,” but in the Areopagus he started with, “As your own poets have said.” In each case, he came around to the same core gospel, but the starting point was adaptable.

The Sweet Spot

Ironically, both ditches are filled with the same debris: churches that don’t make converts and disciples. One blunts the gospel by never deflating culture’s idols, taking away Jesus’ sword so he won’t offend anyone. The other never wins a hearing to begin with, swinging the sword but always whiffing. But when we do find that sweet spot of contending and contextualizing, Jesus is already there drawing people to himself.