CULTIVATING OUR CULTURE I

Jennifer Newsome Martin, professor at Norte Dame University wrote:

“That the word “culture” is related to the Latin word for “cultivation,” for “tending”—like a gardener cultivates soil by supplying it with necessary nutrients, amending it with natural fertilizers, or removing weeds—signifies that culture does not merely indicate high-level products or content which emerge from any given society, but is in fact the very living substratum from which these products emerge. I have learned over the years that with gardening, having good soil is everything. To cultivate it, to culture it, is patient, care-ful work (literally work that is full of care) that requires sustained, supple, devoted attention.”

Culture is something growing. It is our responsibility to pay attention to what is growing and if that is what we want to have growing in our culture. That would certainly be true of our social culture and it is now just as true in our church culture. If things are growing and forming in our ‘substratum’ (unnoticed, undetected) and out of sight…they will eventually surface as normal unless tended and cared for carefully.

Culture becomes good or evil by the way we tend and attend it… or by the way we do not tend it.

“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”
Jesus

“And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.” Jesus