Q NYC - Jon Tyson

Jon is the pastor of Origins Church in NYC that we visted on Sunday. An Aussie, he comes from Adelaide originally. He’s a church planter, where the church is 2 years old and has planted a second community in Chelsea, amongst the artistic and gay community there. This was the opening presentation from Q, an 18 minute talk to the second, which is an art form in itself.

The re-urbanisation of church.

 

Cultural renewal - is it impossible? It has happened before - 120 people in Acts changed culture. We’re commanded to do this. 120 people in a room, they shaped the world, influenced the world. 300 years later, when there was 60m people in the Roman Empire - the Christians had captured the culture. 32m of 60m became part of this sphere of Christian influence due to this 120 people.

It’s like a terrorist who came to America proclaiming he’s here as a saviour - so we kill him - 300 years later we worship this terrorist as central in our culture. Women got dignity, children got educated, early church got it right. It’s hard to believe, but it has happened in the past.

But is there a sense of frustration? Why are we getting no traction, why are we not seeing it changed? Perhaps because we have a limited theology. Our theology - all of us are theologians. Go back to garden of eden - the cultural mandate. Created for four relationships - ourselves, God, others, the world. We have the opportunity to shape culture. We can see it’s biblical as a mandate.

THEN came the fall. we have rifts in all these relationships. We now have a renewal mandate, to repair these relationships. We have done a good job of presenting the relationship with God, also of loving communities, and giving people dignity, BUT what about when it comes to the world? We get stuck. Jesus dies for the world, we are to be in the world but not of it, friendship with the world is hatred towards God - all of this equals confusion.

We need to tackle this strategically. So why has there been no traction the way the early church saw? CS Lewis in the screw tape letters, in a scene set in hell, talks of a great demon that is holding a toast and says, as great sinners grow fewer, the demons can have greater influence. I.e. if you catch the bellweather then the flock comes too. So you have to tackle the systems that run the world, otherwise we create a dualism. It’s systems that influence, albeit whether they are good or evil is actually down to how people use them. (So what we need to do is change people, but give them the purpose of changing the system).

All of us deal with the powers that be. Systems can be abused. E.g. politics, media, business. Can be used for good or bad. To worry only about us, others, and community misses the opportunity to shape systems. We have to shape the dominant forces - systems. Systems are located in systems in the world. E.g. clothes you wear. TV shows you watch. Money you have. Magazines you get. Located in cities. We have to interact with these systems. Arguably this mainly happens in the cities.

We have people coming to Christ. And yet culture is not being transformed due to individual conversions. We have to address how the world is structured - the city, and systems. We need a holistic cultural renewal, a deconstruction of bad systems and a replacing with good systems.

There needs to be a return to the city. We have to come back to the city where culture is shaped. Be salt and light. Accept our responsibility - what is God’s heart for the world? Paul - performed cultural acupuncture by impacting cities. He went for the cultural cities. We need to find the channels of culture in our cities and the specific routes to those channels, and train and relase people in there. The world thinks systemically. We are being called to unleash systemic good.

We have an obligation to engage the systems of our time. Just being kind and loving doesn’t cut it (Jon talked of somehow we think that making nice art or movies will make Satan roll over and say ok you can have Hollywood now because you made a nice movie). We will face opposition. We need God’s burden, His resources, and trained people, to tackle these strongholds. We don’t just reach people out of an evil system, we need to change the system. Systems do collapse - communism, apartheid, civil rights in USA - these have all happened in the last 50 years.

Colossians 1v18-20 - God is reconciling all things.

Open your thinking. Redeem whole cultures and whole systems.

BIG MESSAGES I TOOK AWAY?

- NEED TO TACKLE CULTURE SYSTEMICALLY RATHER THAN ONE PERSON AT A TIME

- NEED TO GO BACK AND TEACH THE THEOLOGY BEHIND THIS SO THAT WE UNDERSTAND WHAT WE BELIEVE AND WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS

- THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CITY IN THIS SYSTEMIC CHANGE