Let’s tend the garden of culture
Consider the dominant metaphors for culture: melting pot, war zone or contest, stage, endlessly repeating cycle, or culture is likened to a house or a river. And while several of these have scriptural support, the primary metaphor God uses for culture throughout the Bible is actually, a garden.
Our view of culture – the way we see the culture – influences how we engage and relate to the people, technology and events of our day. So, if we see the world only as a battlefield, then culture is a war zone and we are culture warriors. There is truth to this— we are certainly Ambassadors of a foreign King and kingdom (2 Corinthians 5:20). But even in war, you have to eat.
I invite you to join me as a Culture Gardener. God has set us in the garden of this day and time. And this summer, through simple, weekly challenges, we will till and plant and cultivate good fruit right where we are.
So grab a family member, a friend or a whole Bible study group and do it together! Who knows what God might cultivate in, among and through us. Each week, I’ll post a new “Culture Gardner Challenge” on Facebook. To join in, make sure you are following:
Weekly Challenges
Follow along on Facebook for the weekly challenges as they are announced. We will record them here, too!
Week 1: Connected to the Vine
The very first thing to consider is this: are you connected to the Vine?
We like to imagine we are the ones who are going to produce the fruit— all the fruit of righteousness to the glory of God. It’s not the fruit of the branch. It’s the fruit of the vine.
You and I cannot be truly gardeners in the culture of the day— tilling the soil of the cultural conversations, or planting the seed of God’s love or growing a harvest of righteousness to his glory— unless we are genuinely connected to the one who is the True Vine.
Read John 15 and consider our true vine, Jesus and your connection to Him.
Week 2: Pray
As we consider the harvest of righteousness God is seeking to cultivate in our lives to his glory, I wonder how many of us have stopped today to pray. Have you prayed for the soil of your life to be receptive to the word of God? Have you prayed your life would be fertile ground for the cultivation of whatever God wants to bring forth in and through your life?
Stop to pray, and consider that through Christ alone you enter into the fullness of the presence of the Father and are received there by His grace.
Week 3: Soil Testing
Soil testing is important and even testing the temperature of the soil in terms of planting in the spring. How about the soil of our hearts?
In Matthew chapter 13 we have record of Jesus sharing the parable of the sower. Later in the same chapter we also have the explanation of the parable of the sower! What a gift!
As we consider the soil of our own hearts, the challenge this week is to do a soil test. How receptive are you to the word of God? Is it planted deeply? Has it taken root? Has the enemy been seeking to pluck it up and steal it away? Is it growing and flourishing, producing an abundant harvest of righteousness to the glory of God?
Week 4: Seeds Matter
Consider the potential of just one seed. It’s not that the seed just produces one piece of fruit, but holds the potential for generations of orchards of that fruit! Seeds are truly amazing and hold such vast potential.
This week, we are thinking about seeds, in terms of the Word of God being planted first in the fertile soil of our own hearts and then second about what seeds we are planting as culture gardeners in the world around us.
Jesus tells us that the word of God is the seed that produces in us a harvest of righteousness to the glory of God. So have you allowed God to speak to you today through that which he has already spoken in the Bible? That’s how we receive the seed of the word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So get into the Word of God that the Word of God might get into you before you have any thought of positively affecting the garden of culture where God then sends you to be a tender tender today.
That garden of culture is the second level of conversation we want to have about seed planting. We are to sow seeds of peace, seeds of love, seeds of grace, seeds of joy, seeds of hope… Those are the heritage seeds we have received from generations of Christians that have gone before us. And those are the seeds we are responsible to be sowing into the culture today.
So the culture garden challenge this week is to intentionally sow seeds of peace, seeds of love, seeds of joy, and seeds of hope in the world around you. And like God sows, do so lavishly! Don’t worry about whether or not the people into whose lives you are sowing those seeds turn out to be receptive soil. You are responsible to sow, God is the one who gives the growth.
Oh and one more thought! There’s no need to modify the seed God gives. I know that GMO seeds are all the rage but the heirloom seed of the word of God, the grace of God, the gospel itself needs no improvement!
Why culture gardening?
As Christians we receive the Great Commission from Jesus in Matthew 28, but the first commission and indeed the very first commandment of God to humanity as a whole is found in Genesis 1:26-28 and 2:15. First, God commands His people to “rule over the earth” as His delegated authority and image-bearers, as stewards of His creation. We are made in His image, that under His authority we might do His will in the way in which He would do it Himself. This mandate of God is in view as we hear Him issue the next command “to serve and keep the earth.” That’s humanity’s role and responsibility in the Garden of Eden and, I would argue, in the garden of the world today.
As His image-bearers and now as His stewards, we cultivate the garden of our particular culture in the spirit of the living God. The cultivation of the culture is worthy, worshipful, fruitful work.
God also has a clear expectation that we be gardens ourselves— people who are good soil, abiding in the Vine (John 15), producing good fruit in every season (Psalm 1) from roots to fruits!
In some seasons culture produces a harvest of unrighteousness, but in every season God expects His people to produce good fruit and sow peace, caring and tending to the field where He sets them to labor.
Meet Carmen
Carmen LaBerge is an author, speaker, host of the Christian talk radio show The Reconnect with Carmen and a conversational apologist. Her work equips real Christians with real talking points for real life in the real world.
Carmen is a graduate of the University of Florida and earned an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. She lives outside of Nashville, TN with her husband Jim and family.
