Introduction...continued

Western Christian Society

We have allowed our culture to become of greater focus than the Kingdom. More and more time is being spent in determining the strategy, structure and the material needs of the church in a modern society. Don Button (Pastor of Bedford Pentecostal Church) made the statement "Kingdom before Culture" and visits to India have shown that where miracles happen or the prophetic is demonstrated the culture becomes irrelevant. Someone said "No matter what the culture if you raise a person from the dead, people will listen to what you have to say".

The West has an ongoing obsession about youth culture. I think it is very important to minister to young people and for young people to have their own meetings, as they are a part of the church of today, but I am afraid that the emphasis on youth culture may on occasion put the Kingdom into second place.

Western society has a Peter Pan fixation with youth and all things young-looking, and we are in danger of allowing this obsession to infiltrate the western church by giving disproportionate emphasis to all things prefixed with the word 'youth'.

In eastern countries elderly people are given respect and there is deference for their age.

We had an evangelist visit our area and the advertising literature showed a man in his forties. It was no wonder that nobody recognised the grey haired visiting speaker. I wonder what it says about the church. I remember people in the sixties talking about an obsession with youth culture, and perhaps the church is just catching up again. The culture that is manifest in the West through the media and the acceptance of sin can both corrupt and contaminate sound doctrine.

It could be that the church in the West has to learn that there is a greater possibility of a revelation of the Kingdom through the manifestation of spiritual gifts than well-organised, culturally relevant programmes.

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