Rivermont Presbyterian Church – College and Career Sunday School Class
November 21, 1999 AD
The Contemporary Christian - by John Stott
Chapter 14 - Secular Challenges for the Church
As true servants of Christ we need to keep our eyes and ears open to the needs of the people around us in our
secualar society. This does not mean that in every respect we 'let the world set the agenda for the church,' ...
to behave like that would be to confuse service (which is our calling) with servility (which is not), and to
interpret sensitivity (which is a virtue) in terms of conformity (which is a vice).
At the same time, unless we listen attentively to the voices of secular society, struggle to understand them, and
feel with people in their frustration, anger, bewilderment and despair, weeping with those who weep, we will
lack authenticity as the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. Instead, we will run the risk (as has often been said) of
answering questions nobody is asking, scratching where nobody is itching, supplying goods for which there is
no demand - in other words, of being totally irrelevant, which in its long history the church has often been.
Three fold quest of modern, secularized men and women = threefold human aspiration which Jesus arouses
within people, which he alone can satisfy, and which challenges the church to present him to the world in his
fullness.
I. The Quest for Transcendence - challenge to the quality of the church's worship
A. Transcendence - search for ultimate reality beyond the material universe
1. protest against secularization or against attempt to eliminate God from his own world.
2. materialism cannot satisfy the human spirit.
B. Examples
1. recent collapse of Euro-Marxism -- as a philosophy which denies the existence of God.
2. the desert of western materialism -- secularism is no more satisfying to the human spirit in
its capitalistic, than in its communistic, guise (without transcendence 'the person shrivels').
* Human beings know instinctively that Reality cannot be confined in a test tube, or smeared
on a slide for microscopic examination, or apprehended by cool scientific detachment.
3. the epidemic of drug abuse
4. the proliferation of religious cults -- rise of New Age movement
C. Christian Reaction
1. sympathy - Apostle Paul before the Athenian philosophers, men and women are 'feeling
after God,' like blind people in the dark, groping after their Creator who leaves them restless until they find
their rest in him.
2. The church is not always conspicuous for the profound reality of its worship - evangelism is
our specialty; reminiscent of Isaiah 29:13 and Mark 7:6 - 'These people ... honor me with their lips, but their
hearts are far from me.'
D. Suggestions
1. Faithful reading and preaching of God's Word that through it his living voice is heard,
addressing the people again. John 21:15-17; Matthew 28:16-20
2. Reverent and expectant administration of the Lord's Supper - that there is a Real Presence
of Jesus Christ, not in the elements but among his people and at his table. I Corinthians 11:23-26
3. Sincere offering of praise and prayer, that God's people say with Jacob, 'Surely the Lord is in
this place, and I was not aware of it,' -- Worship. Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7; Psalm 96:8-9
II. The Quest for Significance - challenge to the quality of the church's teaching
A. Significance - belief that life has meaning
1. effect of technology
2. scientific reductionism
3. existentialism - has the effect of diminishing people's sense of significance; God is dead,
everything else has died with him; significance is basic to survival - 'striving to find a meaning in one's life is
the primary motivational force in man'
B. Challenge - Acts 17:24-28; Eph. 2:10
1. tell them who they are
2. enlighten them about their identity - teach without compromise the full biblical doctrine of
our human being - its depravity, yes, but also (and in this context above all) its dignity.
3. human beings are Godlike beings - as a result of the fall our Godlikeness has indeed been distorted,
but it has not been destroyed. Further, 'God so loved the world' that he gave his only son for our redemption.
4. when humans beings are devalued, everything in society turns sour - but when human
beings are valued as persons, because of their intrinsic worth, everything changes. read pg. 232
III. The Quest for Community - challenge to the quality of the church's fellowship
A. Modern technocratic society also destroys community - internet, suburbia, age of convenience - no
more Main Street America
B. Era of social disintegration - people are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to one another
C. Three witnesses - read pg. 233-34.
1. Mother Teresa
2. Bertrand Russell
3. Woody Allen
D. Andre Llyod Weber's musical Aspects of Love - read pg. 235.
E. Church misses the mark - Acts 2:42-47; James 1:22-25, 27a; John 13:34
1. theological understanding of call is impeccable but there is little acceptance, little caring and
little supportive love among us.
2. people searching for community ought to be pouring into our churches, especially if they
offer a small-group experience - instead the church is the one place they do not even bother to check out, so
sure are they that they will not find love there.
3. Mel White - Jonestown - Deceived
4. Bishop Stephen Neill - not all Christian churches have fallen short
"Within the fellowship of those who are bound together by personal loyalty to Jesus Christ, the
relationship of love reaches an intimacy and intensity unknown elsewhere. Friendship between the friends of
Jesus of Nazareth is unlike any other friendship. This ought to be normal experience within the Christian
community ... That in existing Christian congregations it is so rare is a measure of the failure of the church as
a whole to live up to the purpose of its Founder for it. Where it is experienced, especially across the barriers
of race, nationality and language, it is one of the most convincing evidences of the continuing activity of Jesus
among men."
IV. Conclusion -- In looking for transcendence they are trying to find God, in looking for significance they
are trying to find themselves, and in looking for community they are trying to find their neighbor. The
contemporary secular quest seems ... to constitute one of the greatest challenges - and opportunities - with
which the church has ever been presented: people are openly looking for the very things that Jesus Christ
is offering! The only question is whether the church can be so radically renewed, by the Spirit and the
Word of God, that it offers an experience of transcendence through its worship, of significance through its
teaching, and of community through its fellowship.