This is one of my major pet peeves...Christians who live in our little Christian ghetto and complain about the world "out there".

However, I do believe there is a place for the Christian subculture and it should break out into mainstream. It wasn't long ago that you couldn't get a Christian TV show or hear a Christian song on the radio.  Our little Christian book store stays in business because stores like Borders and others can't make enough money to warrant carrying more on the shelves.  When you need some special book and you can't quite think of the name of it or the author, we can and we know all the places to search for it if it has been out of print for several years - Borders or Amazon won't do that for you.  If you are a missionary in Cuba and order Sunday School books from Borders, they won't ship them to you, but if you call us, we know how to get them in country.

In other words, what I am trying to say is that the things you mentioned are good things IF they are helping to equip the saints for ministry.  If they become a safe haven to hide from the world we are commissioned to reach, then close them down else they become a stumbling block for us.

...and by the way, the first place I heard Mercy Me's I Can Only Imagine was on an Easy Listening station in Baltimore. I called the station manager and got the name of the song. He told me he was amazed at how many people had called in on that one song...that is what it's all about...

 ITA with your entire post!   

Incidentally, the Barnes & Noble near me has a MUCH better selection of christian books than the christian bookstores.  The christian stores are better places to find Christian Crap - t-shirts, figurines, greeting cards, etc.  

Voice, I gotta visit your place sometime. I live in Tory's area and only go into Christian bookstores under duress. Same with Christian radio--I just can't make myself a regular listener. And don't get me started on what passes for Christian tv on my cable provider!

Matt, when I was stationed overseas with the military it wasn't all that unusual to meet folks who didn't get too far past the front gate.  It's so common that we actually warned the junior folks about the trap of going all over the world and never making it past the bar on the pier. They knew nothing of the places they'd visit and the people in those places learned that all Americans were drunks who were out to corrupt their daughters. The contacts we have with our culture mean that Christians are similarly mischaracterized.

Your last paragraph nails it. I've heard this referred to as "the ghettoization of Christianity." In the older sense of that word, a "ghetto" was a neighborhood where immigrants or undesirables were could pretty much have their own way as long as they didn't bother anyone. Most of them were self-imposed because it was socially/culturally more comfortable and enabled them to preserve the old ways. The net effect was that these people were irrelevant to the culture they found themselves in. How much better that we push ourselves to go into the culture at large! 

So here's the challenge: Musicians, just for a start how about good music that expresses a Godly relationship between a man and a woman? Fiction authors, develop characters that are real--good and evil--and plots that show these real Christians working out their salvation. Everyone, don't compartmentalize. Be all of who you are in all of life. Go into Borders with a friend and sit down to discuss that book you've both been reading. Go to Starbucks and talk about life. And no whispering when what God's been doing with you comes up. (And for you conspiracy theorists, remember that being with "our own kind" meant that the Warsaw ghetto so thoroughly concentrated a community that the Nazis were able to simply build a wall around the place.)

The United States is a country of subcultures. We used to be known as a melting pot, but recent academic opinion is tending towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl rather than a melting pot.  

Regarding the Christian subculture:  

What better launching pad for an up and coming Christian writer, musician, comedian, radio host, etc.? The crossover potential is much greater for a successful Christian artist. 

What of the shut-ins and prisoners whose only exposure to the gospel is through Christian media (radio, TV, books).

What of those that are seeking? Where shall they look if we kill the Christian subculture? 

Must I listen to secular radio in the hopes of the off chance I might hear something edifying smushed in-between songs with obscene and sometimes even blasphemous lyrics?

Could it be that Barnes & Noble now stocks Christian books due to their success within the Christian subculture?

PastorDan,

I need to plead ignorance on one account...I have never had cable TV and the only reception we get where we live is a UHF station that comes in when the weather is just right.

Also, a lot of the store front Christian book store is what the public will buy...Christian schlock, I call it...things that are nice and "Christian".  Some of it, though, is very useful...our folks are trained on every translation of the Bible - some more than others. The real activity happens behind the scenes - the revenue generated by this storefront enables us to work all the right relationships to get 10,000 evangecubes into Cuba, for example.  That takes a lot of time, some money, and a lot of trust built over the years - all of which we can only do because people buy enough of that Christian schlock to keep us in business.  We are, right now, working with a group of South Koreans who are going into Iran next year. <Everybody, please buy lots of schlock from our store at www.jacobswell.net since this is costing us a lot!>  We do it because there is a need and there is a soul worth every penny of it.

Mary Ann, thanks for pointing out the obvious!  Even I had that log in my eye!!

Tony,

Most Christian bookstores are on the verge of bankruptcy because they are not in it for the money. That is a good thing and a bad thing.  When you are on the edge like that, you trust in God a lot more, but the service you bring to the community is lacking.  I encourage you to find out what is the calling of the folks who are running the store and see if you can get behind it. 

I will also say that many of the items we have in our store are on consignment. The way the big stores work is that you have to have your items (bookmarks, books, music, etc) in a certain number of stores before they will even consider you. We provide that service to a lot of new artists...or in some cases it might be a lady in a nursing home who crochets crosses and simply wants an outlet for them.

WRT voice_in_dc's comment:

"Most Christian bookstores are on the verge of bankruptcy because they are not in it for the money."

I'd like to add my 2 cents in here to expand on that comment. I have some first-hand experience with that...

I worked part time for a local Christian bookstore before they went out of business. Even though I had a full-time job as an engineer, a part-time job as an evangelist and teacher; I held my other part-time job at the Christian bookstore.

The owners of the Christian bookstore where I worked were Called to that ministry. Their ministry had a season for its operation and God had a reason for its being. The shopping center, like many, did not allow Gospel tracts to be handed out. But our little bookstore did not have a Christian-sounding name and we got plenty of folks walking through our doors looking for secular books. Of course, that opened the door for us to be a witness for Christ.

I can't tell you how many people ended up walking out of the store with their first Bible ever. We prayed for people that asked for prayer in the back of the store away from "piercing eyes." We kept a prayer book as well that employees and customers could write in. We were able to be a witness in that shopping center working "against" the rule that handing out Gospel tracts was NOT allowed on the premises. Imagine that! I even witnessed (unknowingly) to an International "bad guy" that was arrested a month or so later and made the news pretty high in the pecking order of things. I may have been his first and only encounter with the Good News!

God works in mysterious ways and never ceases to amaze me in how He uses ordinary folks to say the most profound things by a word of knowlege to a person that accidently walked in to that bookstore looking for a secular book that was not going to be found in our inventory. I know that the Holy Spirit led a lot of folks into our little Christian bookstore. God may have opened that bookstore to just have a single person saved. To me, one life saved would be justification enough for us to have had that Christian bookstore for just a little while. I do know that He used the store for much more!

Bottom line? I'd be a little careful about interfering with God's Plans; even unintentionally. He is using a lot of people, in a lot of different situations, in a lot of different locations and through a lot of different methods to accomplish His Will.

We need a little bit of everything and some of those Christian bubbles may be the only place a "Christian" enters. How many unsaved "Christians" are there? Some of them go to church every Sunday, would NEVER set their foot in a bar and even are pretty proficient with not using cuss words and being able to quote scripture after scripture. The problem? We are loving those "Chrisitans" to death and a sentence to Hell. The lost are everywhere and some are found in places you might not think to look.

I have always said that the mission fields are outside the walls of the church. But I remind folks that there is a mission field inside the walls too. As well as other Christian establishments. God can use ANYTHING that He wants to.

Dave

To answer Mary Ann, I'm communicating with Christians here. I'm using the site to coordinate our missional work within our church.

But it's not all I do.

I also have 4 other blogs. I occasionally even go outside and talk to people offline. :) 

Mary Ann:  You bring up some very good questions and I would like to address a few.  For people who are shut ins or are in Hospitals I would like to have not Christian tv stations for them but some Christians shows on regular stations.  Maybe a church service for them on the local stations.  And, I would think that in their church community they are still able to be apart of that.  A church shouldn't dismiss people who can't come on Sunday morning.  The church is a community and not place you go on Sundays.

why am I on mychurch.org?  Personally, I think it's good for churches who can't/don't have community websites to help take their church community to the web.  I think a web presence is important for a church so people can communicate and be more of a community through the week.  It's the only reason I think mychurch.org should be there.  To help extend the local church.  For me, my church doesn't do that on here.  But, I promoed mychurch.org for my podcast and signed up for an account.  My review was even used at http://www.mychurch.org/info/press.php.  The only thing I do over here is respond to people who have commented on my blog.

I have to agree that we are more of a salad bowl than a melting pot and that isn't good.  Christianity should be flowing though all of culture and not just it's own subculture.  The Chrstian part of the salad bowl needs to melt and get into all the other parts.

Something I would love to see in a local bookstore is a Christian section manned by a Christian who helped people find things like out of print books.  That would make my day.  Take that element from the Chrsitian bookstore and bring it to the rest.

"Something I would love to see in a local bookstore is a Christian section manned by a Christian who helped people find things like out of print books.  That would make my day.  Take that element from the Chrsitian bookstore and bring it to the rest."

It is a nice thought and, if it could happen, it would be nice...however, it simply isn't economically feasible. To hire someone who has enough knowledge of the book market to be able to find one or two books a week where the profit margin is maybe $3 a book is not practical.  I think if someone could find a way to make it economically work, it would be happening.

Well, you should like this. this monday will be my frist whole week in my new career as a car salesman for Toyota, hey, I could have been a tax collector. I am also what is called an evangalist, in that I strike up conversations with strangers with the intention of speaking about God,( The Mall of America considers this solisitation and I have been warned not to return) I let all the guys that did my interviews know that I was an evangelist and that selling cars is much the same, except that most people that walk on to the lot are seeking a car, while few are actually seeking God. Just the mention of the name of Jesus has already set some of my co-workers on edge, you could almost smell the anger and fear coming from them, the good news is that I have found two other Christians there so far, sad considering about 80 people work there.

how about some prayer support? 

Matt, I'm not up on the whole Christian cable TV...don't have it, haven't seen it. Regarding the shut-ins and prisoners, I wasn't referring to church members.

Tory, I work down town (Inner Harbor) where there is no Christian book store and, I've noticed, the Barnes & Noble does have an excellent selection.

Pastor Dan, Borders' Christian section is an absolute joke!  Amazon.com...now, they have an awesome selection.

DC, I'll be buying all my schlock from www.jacobswell.net. Thanks for the tip!

For shutins and prisioners, I think this is a place we should not be relying on TV but out there with them.  For prisioners we need prison ministries.  For shut ins we need shut in ministries.  Expecting TV to go do that work is not good.  People need to go personally meet and love those people.  You can't personally love someone through a TV.

But, TV is a way to reach people.  To get them to think.  For Christians to worship when they can't get to church.  I would rather see it on local tv than on a Christians channel.  Wouldn't it reach more people there?  Wouldn't it be more accessable to people there?

Sue, I see your point.  We definitely need that place to recharge and you are right with how the worlds 'stuff' influneces us.  But, I don't think the best way to do that is via having a subculture.  It's not good to have that buble to go back to.  That place where we feel safe and can separate ourselves from the world God called us to serve.

Instead it would be better to have that Christian community.  So, we don't get recharged from TV or radio but from being with other Christians in the mission field.  Genuine Christian community is not about a bubble of safety from the world.  It's about living as a community in that world and working to grow that community.

I'll be the first to admit that it isn't easy to live like this.  But, when did Christ say it would be easy or that we should take the easy road?

Matt,

I think it is hard to differentiate between your "community"  and your "subculture".

I am the first to call it a Christian ghetto where we all hide from the world and debate our details of theology that have little impact. I abhor that type of community.  On the other hand, if a front liner can plug in a CD and sing along with "empty hands held high, one small sacrifice, if not joined with my life, I sing in vain tonight..." and it refocuses them, puts their heart back in the right place, then it is not a ghetto, but a cool drink of tea on a hot day.  I think that is what Sue is talking about, and I have to totally agree with her.

Personally, I don't see how anybody can get recharged from the TV.  We are beings that need relationships. Each of us recharge differently, though, and for some we withdraw to recharge and others draw into people. Just different styles. The key is to remember what we are called to do and get out and do it.

I have to tell you that where I am from (Canada) there are many "subcultures"... however it is nice that more and more Christians are branching out as well as having their "subcultures".  We can do both!  I go to my local library and that is where I have read most of the Christian Books on my list (plus I do not have to buy them - just 15$ per year for my membership card).  I have read over 150 or so books from the library - all Christian, and because Christian's are requesting them there are more everyday.  Also the library is fully aware of the newest Christian releases and makes sure to stock them too.   I haven't seen any specific coffee spots that are "Christian" here that I have noticed anyway.  We have a total of three Christian bookstores in town and that is it.  I love going to them and just looking at the newest faith-related topics because they have more of a selection. 

I walk into secular stores and I am noticing that Christian Music is playing whether it is because  people are feeling free to play it, or it is on a secular radio station... I am liking the changes.  Would I listen to a secular radio station in hopes of hearing a Christian song?  No., I get too much out of my "praise" station to give that up, and frankly the music effects my soul too.  I think we all need to make our mark on the world and branch out of our Christian groups and bubbles, but sometimes the bubbles are nice too.  I think it is more of an issue as to what our relationship with God is all about... if it is lacking in evangalism then we need to go to God and ask Him to help us to be able to evangalize to others in as many different areas of our lives as possible. 

Hey Matt, this is a very interesting topic to me.  I see where you are coming from but also where the subculture needs to exist.  My mind is too distracted when I submerge myself in completely secular things.  The Christian subculture shouldn't be a bubble per say.. but (as several have probably already pointed out), as culture of encouraging outreach and relevancy. 

I guess the question is can there be a subculture w/o being a walled-garden/Christian ghetto?

I also can NOT give up Christian radio.. must... listen... :)

I agree with you Carebear,

I have recently had the opportunity to view two excellent movies, (FlyWheel and Facing the Giants) that were written, directed, produced and acted by a church out of Albany, Georgia.  Had this Christian sub-culture not been there I don’t know if these movies would have been made.  Both have wonderful stories and proclaim an encouraging message. 

It is kind of nice to have the sub-culture has this has called it to have a refuge to fall back on to recharge the batteries.

Randy

Maybe it's how we are looking at this.  The Christian subculture I am talking about is a bubble.  It's our safe place.  It's where Christians close out the rest of the world and be together.

What do I think it should be?  I think christians should be out in the culture, livining as a community together.  There is a difference between a community of Christians and a subculture.

This subculture has created places for just Christians.  This is bad.  Christians should be out in the culture and not back in a safe place of Christians.  I am only a fan of Christians being together like this when they are worshiping.  The rest of the time we need to not close ourselves off from the world.