December Breakfast

Thanks to John and Green Pastures for hosting our breakfast this morning.  He, Rich and myself had a great discussion on church culture.  It all began with John asking Rich how often our people meet together and if we thought this was enough to 'feed the flock.'  This led to a really good discussion on the differences in Korean and Anglo church culture (one of which is the size of the coffee cups), the relationship between church culture and world culture, the difference in the culture of the greatest generation and generation X and the difference in 1st generation and 2nd generation immigrant culture.  Who says pastors aren't cultured people?

Perhaps the place this culture conversation crystallized the most is in Jesus words from the sermon on the mount when he says, "You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again..."  Salt is really salty in the salt shaker, but has no influence on the taste of food if it remains in the shaker.  Conversely, salt that is pored in a 5 gallon bucket of water will be diluted by the water.  Are church cultures like salt?  Do some err on the side of remaining in the shaker while others err on the side of dilution in the culture?   This was the nature of our discussion.

I left this morning asking the question, "What does a Christ salted person look like, think like and act like?  Perhaps we can pick up in January with this question, or we can return to the questions that were raised in November.   Either way, we look forward to picking it up again in the new year.  Though YFC Ken doesn't know it yet, we've tapped him to lead the next breakfast which will be on Wednesday, January 11th at 8:30am at the Youth For Christ office at 1216 Center Street. 

Merry Christmas,
Ken Sikes (Manitou Park Presbyterian)