I received information from Dennis Tuuri about “Q”, a group founded by a fella named Gabe Lyons to “reintroduce Christians to what had seemed missing in recent decades from an American expression of Christian faithfulness; valuing both personal and cultural renewal, not one over the other.”

The Mission of Q:

“Q” educates church and cultural leaders on their role and opportunity to embody the Gospel in public life.

We believe that exposure to old and new ideas is the best way to stimulate imagination for ways the Gospel can be expressed within our cultural context.

Q has annual conferences in major cities throughout the United States to promote Christian Cultural Awareness and to encourage Christians to effectively serve in their cities. Q 2011 will be in Portland, Oregon. A promotional video, Getting the Portland Vibe, can be viewed on their website. According to these guys, “Portland is Jesus’ favorite city!”

By making this post I am not endorsing this organization or event. Rather, I’m hoping to stimulate conversation about what it means for us to minister to cities. These guys are interested in creatively engaging with the culture of our cities in non-threatening ways. This may, indeed, be something we need to learn. However, it may also be, as one person I know said of it, “It’s just good old fashioned social gospel liberalism in a new dress. Gasp!”

We need to be wise to understand our times and preach the gospel into the culture God has placed us AND we need to be sure that we are actually confronting and renewing the culture for Christ. A good question to always be asking in enterprises like this is: Who is converting who?

I plan to spend some time reading some of their blog posts, essays, watching some of the videos to not only learn what they are about, but also to see if they have any creative ideas that we should be considering. Not only so, I’m interested in some of their styles, methods and approaches to things.

Maybe you would care to comment on some of the content of the site?

Tags: Church Growth, cities, cultural renewal, Q, urban mission