Who influnences who?

I was reading one of my devotionals and the scripture text was from Galatians 2:11-21.  I thought to myself, how interesting because we are studying Galatians in Bible Study and that very text was what we talked about last week.  Last Wednesday, we talked about the reasons why Paul confronted Peter in front of the other leadership as to his actions when he was with Jews as opposed to non Jews.  During Bible Study, I thought to myself....isn't this soooooo us!?  I mean how many times have we been one way and then turned around and been another?  Are you following?  I thought to myself...no, none of us would ever fall into that trap!!  Yea, right!  The reality is that we do get caught acting one way with one set of friends and another with other friends.  There are some things that you would share with some people but would never in a million years think of telling others.  And, we can think of a million excuses as to why this is so and feel justified in doing so.  Let me say it a different way...maybe, you have a group of friends that you feel free to use inappropriate language around but say you would never use that same language around your family.  Maybe, you tell crude jokes but would never do so otherwise outside of a certain circle of people.  It's true!  When I was in college, my campus pastor said that pastors tell and send the most crude jokes.  I thought surely, she had to be kidding.  I can honestly say that since becoming a pastor she's right.  AND, I have been a guilty party in sending some bad joke emails to a couple of people. We do it.  We think it's funny; and what's the harm?

Sorry, pastors!  I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus!  I'm just thinking out loud, sharing an observation that I have made and being honest about how I have also been like Peter at times.

I would take this thought one step further and say that this passage is also a passage that reflects what Paul says in Romans 12:2 about not conforming to the world but rather being transformed by the renewing of the Spirit.  Others say...we are to be in the world but not of the world.  But does it really happen that way?  If we take a hard look at our lives- hopefully, there will only be a few places where the world leaks in but for many the world consumes us and has quietly taken over our lives.  For example, I was reading a book where the author did an experiment.  She taped 10 minutes of a popular tv program and showed it to a group of people.  She asked them to count how many  times a sexual innuendo of any type was made during that 10 minute segment.  Most people only caught a few but the reality was that in 10 minutes there were something like over 40 innuendos made.  Things like this are so common place that we have accepted it and become numb to the fact that it is happening- that we are absorbing what culture is feeding us.  Thus in turn, we take this into the church with us and eventually, it begins to quietly take over there also. Pastors and seminarians and people who are interested in church culture talk for hours about how statics show that the culture influences the church more than, if at all, the church influencing the culture.  We talk about how we need to make the paradigm shift in the local church in order to switch who influences who but we can't have this kind of a shift until we make the shift in our own personal lives.  People may walk in and see resemblances of "the church" such as pews, the alter, people greeting them at the doors, etc but when they get past the facade and get to the heart of the church- they discover that there isn't much difference between them and the outside world if there is any difference at all. Ouch!  That's why we get called hypocrits I think.  If we were more honest with those on the outside about how messed up we are and that church is the place where we are seeking healing...in the sense that its a place where you are developing your relationship with Jesus and He is the healer of your life.  The church is the place where you can go to worship your healer along with the other people who are seeking healing also.  And, church is a place where you find people who support one another on the journey.

Is culture influencing you or are you influencing the culture?  If the first part of the question is you...what are you going to do to make the paradigm shift in your life?  If the second part of the question is you...what do you do to keep the culture from seeping into your life?