Note: On the first Sunday of January 2000, in an adult Bible class, I presented a list of items to be thoughtfully addressed if the church were to be a viable voice in the new millennium. I was later asked to expand the list from that Bible class presentation into a series of bulletin articles. Those original articles are available on this website: Foundations Series.
Now 20 years later, it is time to revisit and rewrite the articles. The question is still valid, and ever more pressing: how can the church be a viable voice in our contemporary world? What questions must we address? What understandings are essential for Christianity to survive and thrive in the world we know today? The series is again being written as articles, but it is expected that the articles will be useful as outlines for a sermon series or seminar presentations.
In the new series, I write with the goal of setting forth a 20/20 vision, to help us see more clearly, and to encourage us to set goals that can be accomplished, beginning in 2020. The years will fly by quickly. Can the church learn from what it experiences? Can the apparent decline in Christianity in the U.S. be reversed? Will the church find renewed strength and resolve to present God's truth with boldness, daring, and sensitivity so that future generations of Christians (1) learn how to live in the world without becoming worldly, (2) understand the call to unity amidst diversity, and (3) renew the mission so the primary Christian message is always one of eternal hope? The beginning of 2020 is a good time to begin working toward the reality God desires for his people.

Five articles have preceded this one (plus an introduction). The first three articles addressed the nature of the Bible, biblical inspiration, and biblical interpretation. The next two articles introduced "church" matters -- the nature of the church and the unity of the church. A third major concern is the relationship of the church to the world.

Perhaps more than at any time in recent history, the church, and individual members of the church, have a tremendous difficulty in thinking properly about this world. Sometimes those groups which have tended toward the greatest fundamentalism have most easily assimilated the world's values and standards uncritically, while at other times these groups have stood aloof, fearing contamination. How does one determine which is the appropriate response at which time? We want to heed the biblical injunction not to conform to this world, but at the same time we are anxious to respond to the call of Jesus to penetrate the world, to be salt and light, in order to slow, and perhaps even stop, its decay and to illuminate its darkness.

Paul warned the Corinthians about the importance of being in the world while not being of the world. At the root of the involvement of the church with the world is the adoption of a world-driven worldview. What is your perspective? How do you look at things?

Until we come face to face with God's desire to fashion within the church a people who are like him, possessed by him, and guided by him, we will continue to marvel at the inroads the world makes into our lives, and we will remain generally powerless to do anything about it since we do not understand how it is happening.

Talking about the dangers and threats posed by the world may be an area where we know better than we do. If so, the church must restore in the days ahead the prophetic voice that calls light light and dark dark and countenances no wishy-washy middle ground in the realm of lifestyle and morality. I want to be sympathetic to those who lives are wrecked by the evil which they could not see and did not know. God may not be as sympathetic to those of us who sin "with our eyes wide open" and seek forgiveness without making the necessary changes in our lives which will keep sin at bay.

I do not have all the answers, but I am confident the church must think clearly about the relationship between the church and the world, and specifically about the relationship of individual Christians to the world. Even though the church must be in the world, it does not follow that the world must be in the church!