I've been heavily impacted by Ecclesia Houston's on-going sermon series "The Gospel and Culture" (so much so that my wife and I are planning on getting some brilliant tattoos from the brush of @scottthepainter ...but that's another blog post altogether).

In the series, Chris Seay examines how we the church might avoid both sectarianism (the separatist, removed-from-the-world church) and synchrotism (the church that is so melded in with the world in both lifestyle and worldview that it looks no different, thereby losing it's 'saltiness'). All for a better way.

That way being, in short, "don't separate...engage culture...but remain faithful".

This topic is a big one for me, as I do life with my church community Dwellhere in Burlington, VT. So big that my brother and I have embarked on writing a book (ok, mainly my brother) about the gospel and how we might find and interact with it in the showtime series Dexter.

I highly recommend listening to some of the podcasts from Chris, located here. In post-christendom america, understanding the church's right place in culture is more important than ever.

Here are some great quotes on how scripture guides the church from this past Sunday at Ecclesia, courtesy of @PastorChrisSeay: 

There's not a superlative that's good enough to describe how perfect and remarkable the scriptures are. Call it inerrant, call it inspired, call it authoritative, throw all of them together...whtever you do it still doesn't sum up how remarkable this book is. How perfect in every way. 

The Bible stands over us and exegetes us...we have to make sure that it over-arches our lives and not the other way around.

At Ecclesia, you're going to be rebuked from time to time. And I tell ya, there's not a more loving and grace-filled place that I could experience God's rebuke...but there are often times I just need God's rebuke and he says, 'Listen, you don't get it. You're off-track. You know this and you're ignoring it'. And God begins to call us into a different path. The scriptures do that. Correction in places where you're off-kilter...and the scriptures say 'no, you need to go THIS way'. Instruction and training for a life that is right, so that God's people may be up to the task ahead, and have all they need to accomplish every good work. That's what the scriptures do. They give us everything we need to fulfill the good works of God. We're well-equipped to live in the culture and not be afraid of it because the scriptures equip us well.

If you don't read the passages of scripture in community, you will come up with some crazy ideas. You read it faithfully together...God sorts it out. 

We are submitting ourselves to the Bible. We're not wrestling it into submission as we exegete it. We're being submitted to it. And this is a place (Ecclesia) where you can have a lot of ideas. And you can get up and say, "Well I think the bible is wrong here, blah blah blah". Go ahead and say it all you want, just no that you're wrong. That where you disagree with the Bible, you're wrong. Okay? And you're allowed to be wrong! We're not gonna get so worked up about it. Just know that at the end of the day, the bible is right and you're not. And know that along the way, if you'll allow the spirit to lead you, your heart and your views will start to change. If you'll submit to the truth of scripture, it will change you.

If you're reading the Bible often, and you're living in anger and hostility and hatred towards brothers and sisters, and you're life is filled with contention...you're not in submission to the scriptures. You're not. The more you read the scriptures well, the more it will call out true love in your life. It will. Inevitably.

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by: Nick Hoag