8 Assumptions Pastors Can't Make In A Post-Christian Culture

The so-called Christian culture is going... going... gone. We need to get ready for what’s next.

I’ve never lived in a predominantly Christian culture.

But lately, I’ve been travelling a lot through the Bible Belt, so I’m seeing what a Christian culture looks like for the first time in my life. Churches on every corner, Christian radio and TV on more than one station, and worship songs as background music in a restaurant where almost every table says grace before they eat.

But it also feels like I’m seeing something before it’s gone forever. Like when I was a college student catching a second-run movie at an art house theater where the film was scratchy and missing a few frames. You knew it was on its last legs.

If you want to see what a predominantly Christian culture looks like, take a trip through the Bible Belt. But do it soon. Like the autumn leaves, it won’t be there much longer.

We can mourn that. We can fight that. Or we can get ready for what’s next.

For those living in the Bible Belt and wondering what’s next, you don’t need to look any further than the non-Bible-Belt parts of the world, where we’ve been ministering within a predominantly secular culture for decades. (For me, born and raised in Canada, then living all my adult life in California, I’ve always practiced my faith and ministry as an outsider to the dominant culture.)

One of the first things we need to change are our assumptions. Especially as pastors and church leaders. Specifically, we need to stop assuming these eight things of people – whether they’re unchurched, new to the church, or even long-time attenders. Read More

I live and minister in the Bible Belt in the southern United States. The culture that you would see in the Bible Belt if you took a trip through this part of the country is superficially Christian. It wears a Christian veneer but if you probe beneath the veneer, you discover that it is not as Christian as it appear to be on the surface. True, there are churches everywhere but do not be deceived by the ubiquity of these churches. A much larger percentage of the population is unchurched than the percentage of the population which attends church. Among the segment of the population that attends church a high percentage are cultural Christians. One's social and political standing in the community is still to a large extent tied to church attendance. Not only is there a large unchurched population that needs evangelizing, there is also a large church-attending population that needs evangelizing too.