"No powers, governments, institutions, spirits, or established ways of doing things are absolute, according to the New Testament. They are intended to serve God."

"All too typical is the woman who, after attending worship and disliking the sermon, asked her visiting friend, "Now tell me, what did you get out of that worship service?"

"The woman was taken aback when the friend replied, ‘That’s not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, "Did this community of God’s people worship God today?"

It never occurs to many people to define worship in terms other than meeting individual needs, or to put God rather than personal satisfaction at the center of worship."

"This situation is the result…of the pervasiveness of the power of individualism that tries to determine not only the answers but also the way one shapes the question.

"As in Platonic thought, Enlightenment thought believes that evil has no reality in itself. Evil is simply the absence of good."

"Without an acknowledgment of evil, the church has little basis for evaluating and judging the powers, whether they have turned toward God or toward evil."

"If the Church is truly apostolic, it must see itself as participating in God’s victory over evil."

The dominant group in the dominant culture views that culture as neutral. "But there is no such neutrality of culture. All culture is particular."

"The message of the reign of God, the gospel, is always communicated with the thought constructs and practices prevalent within the cultural setting of the church in a specific time and place."

"But when truly shaped by the Holy Spirit, this message also points beyond its present culture’s thought forms and customs to the distinctive culture of God’s reign proclaimed by Jesus."

"The faithful church critiques its cultural environment, particularly the dominant culture; affirms those aspects that do not contradict the gospel;…cultivating the culture of God’s new community."

Romans 12:2-3 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."

"…shaping its life and ministry around Jesus Christ, his life, his death, and his resurrected power, and living now according to the pattern of the resurrected life in the age to come. The nature of the church’s witness to the world is this

nonconformed engagement with the world."

"as its cultural setting is constantly changing, the church itself must discern where its allegiance to the reign of God requires nonconformity."

Vocabulary?

Economics?

Power?

Other suggestions?

"The church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society even at just a few key points. An important task of the church is to discern what are those key points at which to be different from the evil of the world."

"The salt of the earth"

"The light on a hill"

"Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven"

"The inner, communal life of the Church matters for mission."

"One of the most difficult human tasks is to be different from another and yet stay in relationship."

"The church’s task of announcing the reign of God will mean moving beyond the four walls of the church building, out of the safe group of people who know and love each other, into the public square."