Thoughts From Acts Part 8

If any of you happen to read Mark Batterson's blog, Evotional.com, you might have seen his post called Acts 2 vs. Acts 17.

Here is a little excerpt:

A few weeks ago I heard James Emery White, former President of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, speak at the Q Conference. And he made a great distinction between two approaches to culture. He said we can't afford to approach culture as if we're living in an Acts 2 age where we're surrounded by God-fearing Jews. We need to approach culture like we're living in an Acts 17 age where we're surrounded by idolatry like Paul in Athens. I've always felt like Acts 17 is "the model" when it comes to decoding culture.

I would describe Athens as a culture of misdirected spirituality. There were altars all over the place including the altar to an unknown god. Seems to me that America is a nation of worshipers, but our worship is misdirected. We worship celebrities. We worship athletes. We worship wealth. We worship the body. We worship just about everything except God.

I have been meditating on that thought now for a couple of days and would really like to dig in to it.

How do we change that approach? I used to work for a church who even formed their mission statement from Acts 2.

Can we build an effective church based on that model? What part of that can be used?

How do you approach culture knowing we are in more of an Acts 17 mentality?

Is there a biblical approach we can utilize in today's culture?

Mark touched on it but didn't dig into it. Your thoughts or questions to add are welcome. Please comment.