Missionaries to Culture

Dean Taylor

When I was growing up in a Baptist church in Newcastle, we would from time to time have a missionary from our church that had been in either Africa, Asia or a Pacific island come and speak. They would show photos of where they were serving God and what they had been doing there. These were people who would leave Newcastle and go to a foreign nation and serve God with their lives in that land. They were missionaries to GEOGRAPHY.

God is raising up in this new church age we find ourselves in 2010, another kind of missionary. They are the new breed. They will not obviously replace those God will call to the nations, that is to geography, but they will be a part of this restoration of the Kingdom of God that we have been seeing since the year 2000. These will be known as missionaries to CULTURE. They will be anointed and appointed, graced and called to bring kingdom expression into the marketplace and into each of the sectors of our society which influence our culture.

The Joseph and Daniel Anointing

They will be anointed with the Spirit that was upon Joseph, Daniel and Mordecai, ones who had influence in the culture they lived in. They weren’t sent out to go to another place by God but they found themselves in an environment where God could use them to bring forth His Kingdom purposes, they were “born for such a time as this”. They were sent into the culture they found themselves in and brought kingdom righteousness to the surrounding environment. They were so effective for God because His supernatural favour and power was upon their life and this influenced even the top leader in the land. They didn’t ‘bump off‘ the prime minister, president or king, but they brought the influence of Heaven’s kingdom right in the face of an ungodly leader and their civilisation. All three turned the hearts of the top leader in the land to acknowledge that their God was the only true God.

But the question must be asked why? Why were they anointed with supernatural favour and demonstrations of God’s power? The answer lies in how they lived. They lived Romans 12:2! They embraced a way of thinking, believing and acting that wasn’t based on the culture round about them but was established firmly in the ways of God. They allowed God to change their thinking so that it lined up with the way He saw everything and so they were able to carry the supernatural favour of God right into the midst of ‘wolves’ and the forces of darkness that dominated their society. They lived an uncompromisingly righteous life. They chose to be identified with Jehovah on high and in doing so received the backing of heaven in the face of great opposition, persecution and even death.

Counter Cultural Revolutionaries

God is calling forth a generation of counter cultural revolutionaries. Ones that will not bow to the culture moulders that are surrounding them on every side trying to disciple them away from Christ. The term disciple is not a religious word but in fact simply means to train someone how to think. Rom 12:2 talks about training people how to think like God so that the culture doesn’t suck them in and swallow them up. If we are going to have any hope of having a righteous influence in the culture round about us we are going to have to live with opposite values, beliefs and thinking to what we see all around us. When we look at something or a situation, we are to see it with God’s eyes and the sight from another Kingdom. When Daniel, Joseph and Mordecai lived this way it drew the favour of God and in some instances a power demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s might. Who can forget Daniels lion’s den encounter, and the 3 Jewish young men’s deliverance from the fiery furnace? Both these instances were death sentences but they miraculously walked away unharmed.

A Little Yeast Affects The Whole Batch

The supernatural power and favour of Heaven gets the attention of the ungodly. In this restoration of the kingdom era we live in, God not only wants people to be saved and know Him by salvation but also He wants systems in society to be influenced with the salt, light and yeast from His Kingdom . It is blasphemous that the world God created, including its operating systems, is mostly influenced by the ungodly and the spirits of the Kingdom of darkness on the high places of society. In government, media, arts and entertainment, family and education, God is raising up leaders who will lead groups of revolutionaries into these places, right in the thick of culture where the light is needed. Jesus taught that it will only need a small amount of kingdom (yeast) to be kneaded through the whole batch for there to be influence.

The Gen Y’s

The main group that I see right now who will yield to the call of God in this hour is the 18-35 yr old group. Funnily enough this is also the age that Jesus and his disciples were when they in the first century changed the world in which we live. This is the group, I think you call them the Gen Y’s , who will be the big movers and shakers for the Kingdom because they will not yield to the temptation and mindset that has plagued the previous generation (mine) that “church” is separate to the rest of life. My generation and above really bought into the thinking that Christianity and the world were to be separated, just like oil and water don’t mix, neither does the believer’s faith and the ungodly society. There was a separation and compartmentalising of faith and so the effect of the kingdom on culture was impotent because that generation by and large never even thought it was supposed to be integrated. Christianity became a subculture of society rather than what influenced society.

But things…they are a changing! And very rapidly indeed across the Body of Christ in 2010. We are all to play our part. We are all called to the mandate of being a missionary to culture. So let’s go forth and watch what God’s going to do as the church rises to its place and mission to extend God’s kingdom into the society round about us.