Culture Shifting at First CRC

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Culture Shifting at First CRC
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Identifying Our Culture

• Traditional Culture
• Key Totems
• Faithful loyal love
• Historic psalms/hymnody/confessions
• Formal liturgical/forms
• Traditional Dutch CRC
• Nominal (degree of) Cultural Christianity
• Mission Build and Maintain

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Shifting Our Culture

• Committed, aging, visionary leadership
• Added new leadership/staff
• Betty Spoelstra (music director)
• Michael Goheen (preaching)
• Andrew Zantingh (leadership)
• Results Confluence
• Culture Shift

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Culture Shifts at First Church

• Demographic Shifts (young families/students)
• Worship Shifts (blended worship)
• Leadership Shifts (younger leadership)
• Membership Shifts (CRC and non-CRC)
• Staff Shifts (staff-team)
• Structural Shifts (pastoral elders, small
  groups)
• Ministry Shifts (Outreach focus)

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What has/is causing these cultural shifts?
Spirit-led leaders committed to cultivating

• A Gospel Culture
• A Missional Culture

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Shifting To A Gospel Culture

• The Churchs Never Ending Task

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What is the gospel?

• The goodnews announcement that God in Jesus
  Christ has acted in power through the cross and
  the resurrection to bring life-giving change to
  our lives and to our world by His Spirit.

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What does it mean to live out of this gospel?

• Living out of new identity in Christ
• New position of living in the death and
  resurrection of Jesus Christ
• New basis for acceptance and worthiness
• New potential for personal growth and change
• New motivation for breathing, living, serving,
  and out-reaching (gratitude)
• New obedience of offering yourself a living
  sacrifice to Christs Lordship

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Top 8 Church Counterfeits

• Nominal ismgospel reduced to being baptized
  and going to heaven when you die
• Formal ismgospel reduced to participation in
  scheduled meetings and ministries of the church
• Legal ismgospel reduced to careful keeping of
  the rules
• Mystic ismgospel reduced to emotional or
  spiritual experiences

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Top 8 Church Counterfeits

• Active ismgospel reduced to participation in
  Christian causes
• Biblic ismgospel reduced to master of the
  biblical content and Christian theology
• Psycholog ismgospel reduced to healing
  emotional needs
• Social ismgospel reduced to the fellowship of
  body of Christ

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What is the problem with these counterfeits?

• They are all rooted in the truth, therefore they
  are plausible lies
• They all have self at the center
• They all omit Christ, therefore create a culture
  of death in the church rather than a culture of
  life

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Do we have a gospel culture in our church?

• Every church is affected by counterfeits
• Every church tends to subtly find itself
  substituting the gospel for something else
• Every churchs never ending task is to keep
  cultivating a gospel culture
• Key Leadership preaching, embodying, training
  and centering all ministry in the gospel

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Ministry Core Value 1

• Anticipating Gospel Change
•  Personal Changewe expect the Gospel
  to change us
•   Corporate Changewe expect the Gospel to
  change our families and our congregation
• City Changewe expect the Gospel to change
  our city
• Ripple effect of GospelGospel Changes
  Everything

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Do we have a gospel culture here?

• Quote from one new member during the Welcome to
  First CRC orientation class, a person who was
  asked what you like about First CRC
• What I like about this church is that they
  actually believe/expect that it is the gospel (as
  opposed to something else) that has the power to
  change things.
• Hopefulbut very much still shifting to gospel
  culture.

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Shifting To A Gospel Culture

• The Churchs Never Ending Task