Book of the Month - September 2024
A Creative Minority: Influencing Culture Through Redemptive Participation
Jon Tyson and Heather Grizzle - ISBN: 978-0692821237 - 2016
Author:
Jon Tyson
Jon Tyson is a New York City based Pastor and Author.. Originally from Adelaide, Australia, Jon moved to the US over two decades ago to seek and cultivate renewal in the Western church. He is the author of "Fighting Shadows" and the bestselling books "The Intentional Father" and "Beautiful Resistance." He graduated from Capital Seminary and serves as the lead pastor of Church of the City New York. Jon has been married to Christy for twenty-five years and has two adult children.
Brief Synopsis:
How should the church engage our culture? The recent political cycle has shattered the lens through which the American church has looked at politics through much of our lifetimes. If we return to the Scriptures, we see Jesus offers us a compelling, alternative vision. His heart was that His followers would be a city on a hill and that people would see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven. This was not dependent on the laws on the books, the rulings of the courts, or the leaders in power. His heart was that we would influence culture through redemptive participation, being not just a faithful, but also a fruitful presence. His vision was that the church functions as a Creative Minority in a dominant culture. A Creative Minority seeks not to propose a way to regain cultural dominance, take back our world for God or revisit an unrealistic and nostalgic past. It humbly proposes that if we take on the posture and identity of a Creative Minority, we may rekindle the light in the bushel, and in so doing, cast a hopeful glimmer on the world. A Creative Minority paints a compelling picture of the way the church is called to participate in these challenging and demanding times - seeking neither to control nor abandon the world, but to love it to new life through redemptive participation.
Insights:
“A Creative Minority is a Christian community in a web of stubbornly loyal relationships, knotted together in a living network of persons who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world.”
“If there is no interpersonal conflict in your life, no elements of your character that you are being confronted about, you are networking, you are not in close community.”
“The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way -the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.”
Should I read it or skip it?
First, the book is not long. It took me an afternoon to get through it. Second, the concept is sound. Christianity is not the majority in the US anymore. How do we interact with society in a way that makes Jesus famous and us less so? WE know we have the answer but sometimes we are so busy guarding it we forget to be creative evangelists. This would be a book I would suggest everyone reads. From reminding us to participate
