Escape from the Christian Ghetto!

Please, wake up! Wake up right now! God outside and tell me if you see Christian trees and Christian birds and Christian sky. Is you neighbor across the street using a Christian lawnmower and trimming up his lawn with a Wheat and Tares Weed Whacker

Stop being apart of the ghetto-ization of Christianity. Be in the world but not of it. Instead of creating your own insilation from the world. Most Christians I know are not in or of. They are out of the world and of the ghetto. We must stop building the Christian subculture that allows us to be insulated from pre-Christians, inocculated from relationships with pre-Christians and indoctirnated with Neo-gnostic dualism.

Youtube knock-off:
Godtube.com

Myspace knock-offs:
yourchristianspace.com
shoutlife.com
xianz
hisholyspace

On the one hand I may understand a parents desire to have a "safe alternative" to some internet communities. But ultimately does this work. My guess is not really. It serves to either insulate believers from the culture or entice them away from Christianity altogether. When insulation occurs they may have complete fidelity to the gospel they have no way of communicating the gospel to a world they are utterly disconnected from. On the otherhand legalsim often serves to woek in reverse and entice people towards the "foribidden fruit." Either way we fail and potency of the Gospel is circumvented because Christians either can't relate to the gospel to the culture they are disconnected from or they become so enticed by the lure of the culture that they fail to learn discernment and how to think critically about the culture.

Create art and entertainment for the world, not just for shallow, sheltered consumer Christians.
The Gifted (a Christianization of American Idol)

John chapter 17 gives guidelines for being in the world but not of it. Christians are not "of the world" any more than Christ is. That does not mean that we stand in opposition to the people of the world or that we need God to protect us from the world as if the world itself is evil. Yes, creation itself is fallen but needs, in fact AWAITS, redemption/renewal through Christ. But John 17:15 says we need God to protect us from Satan himself. He has caused humanity and all that God created to fall into a corruptible state. That does not mean that everything is beyond redemption. Just as people are redeemable so is the culture. God created culture and though it is marred by the stain of sin entiring the world, all is not lost.

Seek redemption in all of life. Seek to reconcile all things back to God. He created us for His pleasure but I dare say He created everything for His pleasure rather than ours. Create art, create culture. Don't create a Christian subculture that allows others to compartmentalize God and push Christians into a ghetto of our own making where they can ignore you and dismiss you as irrelevant.