As we come to our final worship service in April, we will be concluding the current sermon series, "Everything I Need to Know About Community I Learned from TV." Last week, we talked about "Monk," a show that I believe can teach the church how to better live out Christ's vision for us to be a blessed community that works to include everyone in ways that nurtures their God-given talents. This week, though, we talk about a significant challenge that TV (and popular culture in general) has created for the church.
Rarely does television show typical religious activities -- regular prayer or worship attendance. And if a program does show religion, it is usually in a gentle comic fashion, like the BBC program, "The Vicar of Dibley," where religious people are generally well-meaning and kind, but not the sort of people who will change the world. While most Christians will admit that any congregation has its share of quirky people, we also recognize that God is changing our lives -- and even changing the lives of others through us. Popular culture cannot fathom how this works, if it even recognizes that the Christian faith can have such a positive impact.
Recognizing this, and truly admitting it, creates a new challenge for Christians who would live out Christ's call to invite others into discipleship. More and more often, people outside of the church have no real idea of what faith looks like -- a recent poll suggested that almost 50% of people under 30 have never had a real interaction with any organized faith community. If these people don't encounter honest descriptions of Christianity in popular culture, how will they learn about Jesus? We'll explore this challenge, and what it means for us, on Sunday, in "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (or The Vicar of Dibley)."
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