Living In The 3rd Culture: Spiritual Intimacy

“We must remember that God will never drag us along the path of true-hearted discipleship. This would greatly lack the moral excellency which characterizes all the ways of God. He does not drag, but draws us along the path which leads to ineffable blessedness in Himself; and if we do see that it is for our real advantage to break through all the barriers of nature, in order to respond to Gods’ call, we forsake our own mercies. But alas! our hearts little enter into this. We begin to calculate about the sacrifices, the hindrances, and the difficulties, instead of bounding along the path, in eagerness of soul, as knowing and loving the One whose call has sounded in our ears”. C H Macintosh

I want to take you back to last week's blog, because I believe the topic is crucial to those of us who have given our lives to serve as ministers of the Gospel. At the risk of being redundant, I want to remind you of some essential ingredients to spiritual Intimacy.

III. Know Yourself: Many pastors struggle knowing who they really are. This often is rooted in fear and insecurity as we struggle to believe that God can really us. We put a lot of effort into being like other leaders and as a result begin to loose who we really are. This applies to our preaching, our intellectual abilities and our way of relating. We end up acting like we have more knowledge than we do, and pretend to be a different personality than we are. If you get caught in that trap, it will kill you! I hope to write more about this at a later date, but in the meantime consider these two quotes

"How can you draw close to God when you are far from yourself . . . Grant, Lord that I may know myself that I may know thee” (Augustine).
"Our wisdom. . . consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes or gives birth to the other.” (Calvin)[2]

IV. Know the Gospel

A. Recognize your sin – repentance for what you have done.

B. Admit what you cannot do – repentance for self-sufficiency.

C. Realize why you don’t do it – repentance for being self-serving

D. Remember Who did it for you.

1. Jesus has purchased your righteousness.

2. The same temptation you are facing and failing to overcome, Jesus faced and overcame on your behalf.

E. Remember that through Christ you can do it - you can keep coming to Him, through ongoing repentance and faith in order to keep tapping into that power source to be transformed into His image.

II. Know the symptoms of being spiritually sick[1].

A. Using God to run from God.

B. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear.

C. Dying to the wrong things.

D. Denying the past’s impact on the present.

E. Dividing our lives in “Sacred” and “Secular.”

F. Doing for God rather than being with God.

G. Spiritualizing away conflict

H. Hiding your brokenness, weakness and failure.

I. Living without limits.

J. Judging other peoples spiritual journey.

V. And as review and reminder from my last blog, as a pastor or leader remember this.

A. Undivided Worship/Reflective Living.

1. Make time for extended personal worship.

2. Take regular breaks from worship and preaching responsibilities.

3. Learn to give up a measure of control over worship services to others.

B. Re-Establishing and Maintaining Spiritual Disciplines – Personal Piety.

1. Spiritual Disciplines are activities intended to deepen our relationship with Christ. They include:

a. Primarily the Means of Grace – Prayer, Scripture, and the Sacraments.

b. Also, fasting, solitude, tithing, evangelism etc.

2. Invest in guilt free times of spiritual disciplines.

3. Resist the temptation to give into the “tyranny of the urgent[3]”

C. Accountable Relationships for Spiritual Direction – Find trusted companions.

1. “Let the person who person who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the person who is not in community beware of being alone.” [4]

2. These are trusted relationships where spiritual growth occurs.

3. They know who we REALLY are and keep ups from living a false life.

4. To grow in our spiritual intimacy is tough and we face two critical challenges “First the pressure of others to keep us living lives that are not our own is enormous. And second our own stubborn self-will is much deeper and more insidious than we think. The possibility of self-deception is so great that without mature companions we can easily fall into the trap of living in illusions” (Scazzero, p. 87).

[1] Scazzero, Peter, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006,

[2] Calvin, John, Institutes of Christian Religion, Volume I, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 37.

[3] Hummel, Hummel, The tyranny of the Urgent, rev. ed. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1994.

[4] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together, New York: HarperCollins, 1954, 57.

Third Culture Defined

The term “Third Culture” has been used in various ways. One “Third Culture” group “consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectuals in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.”Another common use of “Third Culture” in fact describes my personal experience. The term was first coined by sociologist Ruth Hill Useem, professor emeritus of sociology and education at Michigan State University. She used the term to describe children growing up outside their citizenship countries because of a parent’s work abroad. A “TCK or Third Culture Kid has since been defined as, “someone who as a child has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture" Though I am a TCK, it is my desire to use the term in referring to the people who make up the true Christian Church (Theologically defined as the “Invisible Church”). In other words, the Church is a Third Culture. Scripture teaches us that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and the punishment of Hell, and through faith in Him we become citizens of His Kingdom, receiving not only the full benefits of citizenship in His Kingdom, but indeed the right to become sons and daughters of God. The moment, we step into this Kingdome we experience a new and different culture. We are no longer in the kingdom of darkness, but now live in the kingdom of light and that changes everything! At the same time we never went anywhere physically as we continue to work, live, and play with the same people as before, we see the world differently, we no longer truly fit – we are “in the world, but not of it” -- we have a new culture. For most of us this life changing experience occurs within our birth culture and our Christian experience is saturated by those influences. For those who grew up in non-Hispanic White North America, Christianity is uniquely different than those who grew up in an African American context. Our birth culture effects how we live out our faith in the Kingdom of Christ. Yet the Kingdom of Christ requires one more cultural shift and that is away from birth culture and into a culture made up of people of every ethnic and cultural group that has ever existed on the face of the earth. This Kingdom is no more North American than it is Tanzanian or Tibetan. It is a unique or shall we say a “Third Culture” that integrates elements of all cultures into one new and better one, where there is no Jew or Greek, slave nor free, male nor female“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3:26-298). In fact Revelation 7:9-10 gives us a description what this will look like one day:“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." A Third Culture Perspective is one that understands and appreciates that God gathers people from every ethnic and cultural group and brings them into the new culture of His Son Jesus Christ. It is a perspective where birth cultures are appreciated and respected as coming from God, but none are superior. It seeks to have a deeper understanding of the Gospel, pays attention to culture, our own as well as others, and then attempts to bring them together. It is a perspective that “seeks first His Kingdom and His Righteousness” and lovingly and passionately enjoys and glorifies God in all we do. It is a perspective that welcomes immigrants….

Spiritual Intimacy

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