As we settle into our cities or as our churches grow, it can be easy to assume we have “a handle” on the culture of our city, suburb, or town. However, a good citizen-missionary never “arrives” in cultural exegesis but is always knowing, exegeting (studying & interpreting) their culture. To that end, here are some general and specific suggestions for continuing cultural exegesis:

(1) Ask your neighbors and fellow citizens lots of questions. Don’t interrogate them but show sincere, intentional interest in them and the info they possess. Anecdotal information about your city and fellow citizens is unbeatable. Ask them the what, how, and why questions: What do you think is broken in our neighborhood or city? What gets you excited about life? What do you think should be done about economic decline in our city? why do you drive across town to do X? why do you dislike traditional Christianity. Feel free to add to this in the comments.

(2) Read local, independent publications. Very often the stuff that looks like a waste of time contains some of the most clear voices from within your culture. Get local (not just national) opinions and reviews on movies, books, culture and politics. For Austin: Statesman, The Chronicle, Misprint, Austin 360 blog, the Austinist, etc. Feel free to add to this list in the comments.

(3) Gather historical information on your city and neighborhood. How did your city come to be the way it is? What political and cultural and economic issues have shaped the ethos and beliefs of your city? Read local authors and histories. Austin: Writing Austin’s Lives, History of Austin DVD, Bob Bullock History Museum, Neighborhood Assns, etc.

(4) Participate in local art, music, and business. Learn to love your city, celebrate its strengths, learn from her citizens, love her citizens! Support local business, go to art shows, listen to local music, eat local food. Examples are endless in Austin.

Conversion to Christ: This message deconstructs the dualism of American Christianity in order to reconstruct a whole Gospel around Jesus Christ as Lord.

Conversion to Church: This message demonstrates the communal character of the Gospel, unpacking very practical ways to cultivate “steady state community.”

Conversion to Mission: This message shows how mission is not optional but essential, and spends considerable time talking about how to live “everyday life with gospel intentionality.”

Psalm 37:4 reads: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” You want to be married, you want a better job, you want to use your creative gifts, you want better health, you want people to like you. What’s wrong with all those desires? Why isn’t God keeping up his end of the promise? Probably because these are man-centered preferences not God-centered desires. It’s critical that we make the distinction between “preferences of the heart” and “desires of the heart.” Preferences are self-entitlements. Desires, in Psalm 37, come from God.

For the sake of the Gospel, many people are called to lay down “the preferences of their hearts” in order to cultivate a heart that desires God’s greater mission. If we love God first, we may find ourselves doing what we want, not second or third, but fourth or fifth. In my church, we have well-educated entrepreneurs setting up chairs, husbands serving in Kids ministry, people helping with media who aren’t “media geeks”, people running PowerPoint who could be leading worship. We also have some people serving in their natural gifts and strengths.

Using Gifts for the Mission

In the missional church, there should always be seasons of sacrifice and re-alignment of our hearts desires through serving in areas that we are not “comfortable.” Gifting and calling doesn’t lead to comfort but it does lead to joy. As small churches and missional churches grow, people will be able to move into places where they have gifts. This will bless and strengthen the community and mission of the church. It will allow the diverse body to be unified in the mission of Christ, pushing the gospel into a harmonious community that brings the sound of the gospel into every domain of the city. However, if they move into these natural places without the heart of a servant, then they can end up sabotaging the mission through “burn out”, or hurting the church through a demanding heart.

Our service stands and falls in the heart, where the gospel must be applied daily so that we can love God first and then do what our heart desires. The challenges is to so truly love God first that, for a season, you may serve out of sacrifice and the “gift of the gospel” than out of your heart’s preferences. In fact, your gifting will inevitably taking into the heart of suffering. Was Jesus “gifted to be the messiah”? Absolutely. Did it remove discomfort, inconvenience, and suffering? Quite the opposite. The further we move into God’s calling, through obedience and mission, we will discover there is a discomfort in discipleship that must be embraced. It will be embraced, even enjoyed when we have put aside preferences for desires. Not all our natural, even good desires are fulfilled this side of the new creation. Remember the condition on this promise: “delight yourself in the Lord…” What you will find is that the deeper you delight in him, the more your desires will change. This change will include a valuing of Gods mission that runs so deep in our hearts, it will displace former desires. Despite the cost, it comes a profound, deep joy of serving in the strength that God supplies so that in all things Jesus Christ may be magnified (1 Peter 4:11).