In my view, the biggest mistake the preceding generation of pastors and preachers made was that they, for the most part, refused to actively engage culture.

When changes in society came, they retreated to their pulpits and their Christian ghettos. Yes, they preached hard from those vantage points, but they didn’t enter the highways and byways to share the Gospel. They preached to the already convinced while leaving the confused and indifferent to wander aimlessly into a morass of vague morals, and inevitable sins.

When the sexual revolution hit in the 60’s, few preachers saw it as an opportunity to preach about Biblical sexuality. More often than not, they taught about conservatism – the old ways –  and did little more than condemn those with probing questions and a culture “gone mad.”

When the Baby Boomers emerged on the scene demanding a new level of individualism that had never been seen before, the pastors and preachers didn’t see the opportunity to speak about our uniqueness in Christ, or God’s intimate knowledge of us as individuals. They didn’t talk about His plans for the one as it fit into His plans for all of humanity. Instead, they mostly preached that people should fall in line and ignore the questions of uniqueness.

Obviously, during these periods concepts like sexual purity and the importance of not being self-centered should have been aggressively taught but massive opportunities were lost to shape the debate and weave God’s wisdom and counsel into the fabric of our society.

Every shift in our culture provides an opportunity to plumb the depths of God’s Word and share new insights to hungry minds about the pressing concerns of the day.

We should never neglect any part of God’s Word, but it’s clear to see that large questions seem to come into bold focus for a society from time to time and rather than telling people to please go back to the old questions – the questions with the well-established answers – pastors and preachers should be willing, and even eager, to engage any new dialogue or debate because God always has ready answers.

The point here isn’t to place blame on those that have gone before us. They made mistakes and we will too. I’m sure my views of their times are skewed in big and small ways. The imperative point is that we, as the current holders of the torch, must awaken to our responsibility to engage our current culture to help ourselves and to build a solid foundation for future generations.

Let us not retreat but may we boldly enter the “marketplace of ideas” and respectfully, but unwaveringly, present all we understand God would want to say to our generation and culture.