Culture Club- Do you really want to hurt me?

Jeff and I are studying a new book together, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture in the Church and attending a class discussion on the book offered at Gateway Church.

Something I like to do when I study is cross-reference; in this case I Googled to find others talking about this book. Here is one blogger describing the book, "Burke tells the story of a small group he's been leading. 10 of the 12 members were completely unchurched. He describes the one previously churched couple as 'a bold new genre of missional Christians who are not content to play church by just huddling up with Christians. They wanted to be in a place where real, worldly people, with real messy lives, were seeing the real God in action. But unfortunately, they represent a minority of churched Christians - Christians who, like the apostle Paul, willingly venture out of their comfort zone into the messy, pagan culture of Corinth or Austin.' Wow - that hurts!" Burke had caught my attention with this, too.

The blogger goes on, "The culture of a church is more important to connecting with unchurched people than the music, preaching or any other ministry. Do new and unchurched people feel welcomed? This sounds like an easy no-brainer, but the cultural gap between pre-Christians and Christians is huge. I've seen this exact phenomena take place during unchurched-churched interactions. The church people don't realize they're pushing the unchurched people away, but they often are."

Sometimes I learn the most from reading the comments to the blog:

Here are a couple of "I thinks" - for whatever such things are worth:

1) I think it is more than "are unchurched people welcome." I think it is "does this body look and feel like Jesus himself?"

2) I think programs are almost irrelevant. Yes, they can draw people; my experience, tho, is that they mostly draw either a) people who are already convinced we have something worthwhile to say or, b) people who really don't want to be there but will put up with it for a time because the program is cool. Nothing has sent us backward as much as growth.

3) I think - though I have no evidence - that the question is "what was it about Jesus that was so attractive to non-religious people? How do we become, together, like that?"

I grew up going to church. I always felt that I was standing just outside of the church culture, looking inward. I never really understood what they were doing-what they were trying to do with their "church hour" each week. What happened between the bookends of the weekly services seemed inconsequential, as long as you set aside "The Lord's Day."  I became jaded as a teen, and rebelled heavily throughout the next 8 years into my early 20s. Then I jumped back into church, determined to find the answer-- but only finding one church culture after another, that still left me feeling like an observer.

I feel that I fit the description Burke noted in this first chapter-- Not Content To Play Church. I've been told I'm incorrigible by my rebellious ideas and behaviors. I have a hard time making and keeping friends inside the church, because honestly living inside the church culture bores me. Leaves me wanting something. I get fidgety, wanting to get out there and do the dirty work that I read about Jesus and the Disciples doing, the work Paul did. Going out there among the people... getting back into the culture.

What does this mean to you?  Do you think that there is a "Church Culture"?  Then how do you define the "feel" of your church? How would an outsider say your church "feels"? What does your church value-- what "environment" do you hope to create?  What would you say to that commenter, who said programs and growth are backward???