What I Mean When I Say “Culture”

One day, a friend was telling my wife and I about their move to New York city. In the course of discussion, we learned about their recent church maneuverings as well. They shared that even though they had originally chosen to go to a certain famous preacher’s church, they ultimately chose another. When we inquired why, they said,

“You know, I love their preaching. But (being from a hispanic background), I constantly felt like an outsider. Even though I tried to get involved, it was just too…different.”

Around the same time, another friend shared something similar. She had recently moved to Washington D.C. for work and had almost the same exact story. While she valued the preaching from another prominent pastor, the length of the service, relationally cold vibe, and lack of familiarity of the liturgy and structure of the church, she wasn’t able to find the kind of connection with people she had hoped. Herself being hispanic also, the preaching, alone, wasn’t enough to keep her.

No program addition, extra bible study night, or young adults hang out would have done it for these two friends.

Both of these examples highlight an important distinction for churches and their artists to consider: why is culture the determining factor for evaluating outsider integration?

© Matt Taylor. 2026

3 Elements of Culture

When I use the word culture, I really have three traits embedded together. Culture, in its pure and simple form, is a social group’s creation of both its internal and external worlds. This definition makes the word, culture, both a noun and a verb. It’s not only the stuff a group of people makes themselves, but the hidden assumptions, worldviews, and values unseen at work. It includes the activity of making such things occur in real space and time as well as the manifestational expressions existing.

To make this more “bottom shelf,” though, I want to simplify this. There are three specific reasons churches ought to consider their church culture when integrating their cross-cultural neighbors. I break these down into culture, social, and story reasons because these are all connected to our humanity. These three provide a metric for us to measure our church’s “reach” or “engagement” into the communities they reside.

1. Culture

The “Culture” lens is our church’s comprehendability to others. Who feels like they are understood in our church? And who is interpreting what we do, say, and value? What language and depth of “insider-ness” does the church’s people and pulpit assume of its hearers? If the church were a middle school, what “cliche” would be the obvious one we’d have to join in order to fit in?

This was Paul’s heart in 1 Corinthians. He said in 1 Corinthians 14:23, “If the whole church assembles together and all are speaking in other languages and people who are uninformed or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds?” There are few actual places the New Testament speaks to our Sunday worship gatherings. But this chapter would be one place where it’s explicitly talked about. Paul’s whole point about speaking in tongues is that while they historically served as a sign of judgment for Israel’s hardening, his desire for the church is clarity and edification (14:3, 14–19, 26, 31). He emphasizes that speaking in tongues should ultimately lead to outsiders understanding God’s heart, being convicted of their sin, and falling down to worship (14:24–25). But if they cannot understand the gospel because the church requires a cultural insider tax, we cut off this opportunity for them.

2. Social

The “Social” lens provides our neighbors with a sense of belonging. How thick or thin are the relational barriers in the church community? How quickly can they enter and conclude, “this is a place for me.” Or, “I can see my true self being valued and useful here.” Do neighbors feel like they have a “seat at the table?” Like their voice would be welcomed? Or are the invisible relational boundaries too thick, like there’s any extensive process for them to find their place socially? Can they envision the possibility of being a leader in this community one day?

This was one of Paul’s issues with Peter in Galatia. In Galatians 2:11–14, Paul opposed Peter for rubbing shoulders with the Gentiles one minute and then separating himself another at the presence of the Jews. Why? Because Peter is essentially telling the Gentile imagination “you aren’t completely welcome in this social group.” We want our neighbors’ imaginations to conclude, “you have a space here.”

3. Story

The third lens is “Story.” Our neighbor’s Story is all about their finding purpose and wisdom from the kingdom of God. Are their real-time issues being addressed? Or is the church constantly solving problems of another specific, dominant, culture? Is the church living in the past, solving front burner emergencies of one people while disregarding another?

Likewise, do the neighbors find life from your church? Does the church look Christlike similar to Jesus in a John 4 manner where we see Jesus engage the woman at the well’s personal narrative. She finds life in Jesus’ entering her issues. He entered what she craved. Many times though, our church’s direct and indirect messaging focuses on providing living water for a few types of people, but not all.

Artists have an important role to engage un-churched neighbors, but use their artistry to cast vision for God’s kingdom among the neighborhood.

What Makes A Welcoming?

Every Saturday morning, the elderly folks play pickle 6 houses down from Jack’s.

It didn’t take long for Jack to acknowledge how nice the elderly folks.

But after a year of walking by them, a question hit him. “Am I actually welcome to come and join their Saturday games? There are six courts, of course. They already use rotations.”

It never dawned on him until one year in that this group of 40 pickle-ballers might just be incredibly open to him joining their weekend ritual. In fact, little does he know, they even pray about neighborhood folks joining!

But…

Jack has no plan to join them. Something in his imagination already says, “I’m not allowed.”

We All Make Melody

If you’re a songwriter..and you’re trying to making things come alive that didn’t exist already, your greatest success in that field would be somebody humming that song on the way to work or listening to that song in the car dropping their kids off.

You want to be able to permeate everyday life with a melody.

Jack White on Seven Nation Army

On one hand, creators have a God-like characteristic: they make things that didn’t exist before…sort of. Jack is right. Seven Nation Army, technically, didn’t exist before he wrote it.

It’s easy to feel nervous talking this way because such statements are only one or two steps away from dethroning God of his ex-nihilo activity.

What White isn’t acknowledging in this clip is all the pre-existing earthly raw materials that he cannot take the credit for.

Guitar strings, the local music shop he bought his first guitar, his fingers, the pentatonic scale he inherited from his Western ancestors, his brain, his imagination, the origin of his desire to play, the divinely placed architecture of his life and up-bringing, his traumatic experiences, the social networks which opened the doors for The White Stripes in their hay-day, the “accidental” connections, major TV networks (MTV, ESPN, etc.), and even his sense of it even being meaningful that someone who hum his song in their car.

White is voicing something explicit though that artists get already: they’re makers. They already recognize their ability to create.

I believe they’re just one step ahead of many “non-artists.” For the non-artist, it’s easy to compartmentalize the “artist” in this god-like cupboard. And because the artist resides “there,” non-artists are “not there.”

Here is the problem though.

God made all of us creators. We all take the raw creation and fashion it to make something of the days of our lives. We all have worldviews, we all use words, we all create moments with those around us, we give (or don’t give) birthday presents, we make food for ourselves and others, we make work and in exchange we receive money.

Art is never the work of mere artists.

We’re all called to bless others, to put a melody of God’s kingdom in someone’s imagination.

Art Under the Bed

“Everyone is born creative;
everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away
and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc.
Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug'
is just a wee voice telling you,
'I'd like my crayons back, please.”
Hugh MacLeod

Maybe you’re an artist wondering, “I’ve got young kids, a full-time job, and by the end of the day, I’m completely spent.” 

I get you. 

Maybe you’re like I was.

I spent years in art school, once filled with dreams of all the many ways my art would act in God’s creation. 

For a long time afterwards though, I found my undergraduate artwork sitting under my old bed at my parent’s house, collecting dust. No sales, no function, and no apparent service to anyone. 

Often the art-major’s first job out of college is called life. 

Full-time jobs, families, other hobbies, binge watching, sleep, repeat. This is the cycle that becomes our lives. 

But somewhere in there is the child asking for their crayons back.

Glories of Books

Westerns churches are like libraries or bookstores.

They’re for some people. But not all.

For those they’re for, they’re treasure.

When you travel to other towns or cities, you visit them.

You love the smell of books, fresh or musty.

Some may even design entire vacations around visiting their favorite used bookstores or historic libraries.

Yet, these spaces are not for all.

For the non-converts, they’re symbols that communicate “classroom” to the imagination before ever stepping foot in one or tasting the glories held within the books themselves.

Shaping Culture One Early Adopter at a Time

There is no magic wand for changing culture.

Well, that’s not totally true. Those types of changes come through enforced laws and totalitarian regimes.

But there is a more nuanced way to shape a culture: one artifact or ritual at a time.

It takes time, and even some grumbling with the masses. But stick with it long enough, and one early adopter will catch on.

Useful vs Usedful

Today’s artists in the church face a dilemma they might not know how to verbalize. But they definitively feel it.

I call it the the Useful vs Usedful theory.

Being useful is to be relied upon for your artistic wisdom and insight to bless others in a way you know will be meaningful. Summoned upon or not, you have a vision to see a gap somewhere and intuitively know how to fill it. Being artistic means you have an imaginative frame that allows you to dream some and innovate. It might not be safe. And it might not even work out. But the process is part of the fun and joy of it. You at least moved the needle further to closing the gap. You are useful.

To be usedful is to merely have utilitarian function. The artwork isn't just a tool. You are. Being usedful it to be a tool for someone else’s vision. Your given a paintbrush, but someone removed your eyeballs to start the painting. You’re a singer with no voice. Like a puppy on a leash of her master, you bow to someone else’s heart.

When you’re useful, your wisdom is leaned upon. You are treated like a human.

When you’re usedful, your utility is hired. Your heart is in a cage. Your work is a container for another’s message.

Useful artists are co-laborers. They’re partners.

Usedful artists are mops, brooms, or new chairs. They’re machines.

Poverty of Art

Calvin Seerveld, “Imaginative Grit and Everlasting Art in God’s World” (Lecture):

“My conscious condemns me for thousands of children dying to malnutrition and preventable malaria in distant places.

But I also am aware the ten thousands of youth dying from formulaic meretricious songs.

Listeners are deceived and cheapened, musically anesthetized.”