When Faith Takes Center Stage: Making the Most of Major Moments in our Culture

(This is a reprint of an article I wrote a few years ago for our church magazine at Hope Baptist in Las Vegas. I think it serves as an excellent refresher in leveraging the opportunity to speak truth into the culture that the final episode of the TV series Lost has afforded us. Enjoy!)

            “If God had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like Heaven and Jesus…”

(from “One of Us” by Eric Bazilian)

I’ll never forget the first time I heard those words come wafting over my car stereo speakers. The woman’s voice that sang them sounded so sincere and the questions she was asking were so poignant that it stopped me in my tracks.  In the weeks that followed, that song rocketed up the music charts and you could hardly turn on a radio or TV without hearing it. Whether or not you agreed with the sentiments expressed in the song, there was no denying that the subject of faith in God had suddenly been thrust into the spotlight. It was as if the songwriter had tapped into something deep within our cultural consciousness; the longing for God to be real and, more importantly, to be accessible.

Suddenly, everywhere I went, people were discussing spiritual things. Friends outside the faith were anxious to hear my take on it. “You’re a Christian, Jerry, what do you think about it?” People who had been totally closed to the gospel only a short time before were now asking me to explain it to them.!

That was a rare moment in our secularized culture, a divinely orchestrated open window of opportunity to engage our culture on its home turf. Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller The DaVinci Code was another such moment. Suddenly the question “Who is Jesus?” made headlines in every newspaper and magazine in the world.

Dick Staub, in his book Too Christian, Too Pagan says, “Jesus didn’t invite the world to come to church, He commanded the church to go into the world.” The question for us is, “Can we put down the picket signs long enough to honestly answer the deep questions of faith our culture is asking in popular music, books, TV and movies?”

So how can we be ready for that next big moment when it comes? How can we engage our culture without succumbing to its influence? Here are a few ideas to help us be “in the world but not of it”:

Pray!  There is no substitute for spending time alone with God. Like Pastor Vance always says, “We don’t pray before we work, prayer is the work, then God works.” Changing your world starts by letting God change you into the image of His Son, then letting people see that image in your life.

Stay connected. Don’t retreat into a stained-glass bubble. Get out there and mingle! Watch a little TV, listen to the radio, go to a movie. Don’t retreat into the Christian subculture or you may miss what God is doing all around you.

Affirm Truth wherever you find it. There is an old saying; “Truth is Truth even in the mouth of Baal.” Sometimes pop culture can stumble onto truth, even if it doesn’t understand why it’s true. Look for themes in pop culture that line up with Biblical truth. Point them out at every opportunity. Use them to start discussions at work or school. Some helpful resources for doing this can be found at websites like movieguide.org, movieministry.com, and Focus on the Family’s pluggedinonline.com.

Be ready with a gentle answer. People will have a lot of tough questions about faith in a fallen world. Don’t get defensive or intimidated. It’s not about being right; it’s about speaking the truth with love (Eph. 4:15) and trusting God with the result.