Cultural Influence on 21st Century American Churches

As Christians begin to try to reach out to more people in America, the first world nation’s culture has slowly begun to infiltrate into the very structure of the church. Today, American churches operate in a very different way than the intended recipients of the scriptures. Through the way individuals choose a new church, to how the family is supposed to reflect the church, to how the government and church connect, and finally how social media is utilized during worship, culture has helped create what the 21st century American churches look like.

To begin with, the way Americans choose a new home church is very different than the Christians in the Bible. American Christians tend to view choosing a new church as a shopping experience, weighing the pros and cons of the opportunities that the church

Twenty years ago, people predominately discovered new churches through word or looking them up in phone books; however, now a church’s social media has become the first interaction with the congregation. Additionally, now pastors of predominantly young church interact with the congregation during sermons through live feed polls and interactive Bible note taking apps. To me, this is still a strange and foreign concept. While there are benefits of staying constantly connected, I feel like this might possibly further take out the need for conversations with people that build deep, meaningful relationships.

American culture is a weird and almost foreign thing to me. The way it is changing the way we choose churches in a shopping-like manner, how my is closer family than the church, how the church and government reflect each other, and how social media is now being incorporated is new and predominantly isolated to American culture. Until American Christian begin to understand that values are the only right ones, never will ever be able to minister to Christians of other nationalites in our own