Perry’s Scope: Christian sermons, lessons, and resources for teachers

 I wrote a few weeks ago about the culture of a nation impacting the church. I thought of some more ideas that I want to share with you. In the American Restoration Movement, one of the urgencies was unity (as in John 17). The leading men of the Movement attempted to unify the denominational world into one body.

What was going on in the historical proximity? This was close to the American Revolution. One of the pushes for the Founders was to unite the colonies. Remember Ben Franklin’s “Unite or Die” motto? It seems to me that these events caused religious people to think about their circumstances and they realized that unity in Christ was a missing element that served many purposes.

• Unity pleases God
• Unity identifies the followers of Jesus
• Unity glorifies the Son
• Unity gives strength to the disciples
• And more

The times impacted Christian thinkers. They did not come up with the Restoration ideals in a vacuum. They saw what was going on in their society and overlaid those things onto the church. It occurs to me that the American Restoration Movement was a bit of an American Revolution in itself.

Take a minute and observe our culture. What is going on in our society? What impact is it having on the church? Is that impact positive or negative? What can you and I do to fan the flame of the positive or head off the negative? Maybe in turn we can impact the culture as leaven.

Keep The Light Burning!

Perry Greene