Salt and Light Teams
Engaging the Culture
SALT Teams are open to graduates of The Truth Project. (Click here for more information about the Truth Project.)
No one would ever think of going to the Olympics to participate in competition without having trained and practiced. Yet, Christians are prepared to go out to a very competitive world with many viewpoints and engage with little or no training and practice. Often it’s because little training is available.
How do we engage the culture with biblical truth as “salt” and “light”? What do we say to others? Many people feel inadequate even after they have read and studied great books on being an engaged Christian in today’s world. In a sense, we are all “dummies” and need help engaging others winsomely.
For almost 2,000 years in the West, Christians have been salt and light for the world. Christians started the first hospitals. During the two plagues in the 3rd century, Christians stayed in the cities and took care of the sick. In the 6th to 8th century, Irish monks copied the manuscripts of the Western world and preserved them. They then founded monasteries all over Europe as centers of culture and learning. In the 12th century, universities, which had been started in the Middle East, came into their own in the West with the founding of the universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, where students and faculty explored the wonders of creation. Aquinas called natural philosophy, “The Queen of the Sciences.” In the 16th century, John Calvin introduced universal education in Geneva, educating women and young people for the first time. Of the first 110 universities and colleges established in America, 108 were founded as Christian institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown.
Over the last 100 years, what happened to Christian cultural leadership? To judge by the evidence, Christians abandoned their influence in the culture. Many Christians became focused exclusively on individual salvation, forgetting the Cultural Mandate that Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-14). To be “the salt” means flavoring and preserving culture. To be “the light” means shining Truth into every corner of the earth and overcoming darkness wherever it is found.
Here are three easy steps “for us dummies” that just might help us engage the culture as a follower of Jesus Christ, just as William Wilberforce did in his day, with dramatic results. For more information about William Wilberforce and creating "The Better Hour" click here.
Step One: Form a Salt and Light Team through your church
To engage the culture as “the Salt of the Earth” and “the Light of the World”, first gather together at least four to eight Christian friends, ideally from your church, to form a Salt and Light Team (SALT team) with whom you can study to sharpen your biblical worldview and “stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24-25). A SALT team would be an ideal way for your Truth Project small group to continue meeting, to build on the solid biblical worldview foundation laid by the Truth Project.
There are no lone rangers in this process. It needs to start with a small group of like-minded friends. William Wilberforce had approximately 10 friends in Clapham, England, with whom he constantly met for encouragement, study and strategizing in their mission to end slavery and reform public morality in the British Empire. Nevertheless, you can start with as few as four friends that will commit to meet regularly. Again, the ideal would be for your Truth Project group to continue as a SALT team.
Once or twice a month initially is a good starting point. The goal is to deepen and sharpen your biblical worldview through continued study and to explore ways to engage as “salt and light” in your community.
There are four key areas to focus on building on the biblical worldview training you’ve already received:
- Knowledge – Study of the Bible to understand the narratives (what it says), the application (what it means), and apologetics (how to defend our faith).
- Spiritual Practice – Develop regular prayer, devotions and church attendance – “train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7-8).
- Learning to speak both the Church language and the Secular Language – Fifty years ago, we had a culture that was more or less unified. Today with multi-culturalism and aggressive secularism, we have two languages – one of Christians and one of the secular culture – which are as different as English and French. We cannot speak French to people who only speak English and expect to be understood. Likewise, we need to learn to speak each language and know the differences of the culture of each. We also need to learn how to listen and earn the right to share our “light”.
- Learn how to engage the culture. Use a study of the book, Creating the Better Hour: Lessons from William Wilberforce to understand how Wilberforce and his colleagues engaged the culture and changed their world by living out their faith.
It is in this small fellowship group that one explores how to bring the community together for a Better Hour Gathering event follow-up. The goal is to use steps 2 and 3 as a way of earning the right as Christians to be heard. There will come a point where people will see how much you really care about them and the community and will ask you for your opinion on faith – this is the teachable moment. The Better Hour Leader’s Manual will guide you through how to earn the right to be heard.
Step Two: Invite people from your community to see a one-hour film followed by a brief discussion
A great way to engage the community is to reach out broadly with an event at a local high school. The reason for suggesting a high school is because there you can reach seven groups that are mostly not part of the church: students, teachers, parents, friends, neighbors, community leaders and the media.
Gather a group of people, your friends and acquaintances, perhaps your small group – 40 percent of Americans are in small study groups according to George Gallup – to watch the film, “THE BETTER HOUR: The Legacy of William Wilberforce,” recently broadcast multiple times on national public television and available on DVD through ShopPBS.com and Amazon.com. The film demonstrates how one person with a small group of friends changed the world by living out his faith. In this case, Wilberforce, working with ten friends, changed England from a self-indulgent and decadent world to what became a more civilized and moral Victorian England. It shows how moving from merely being a “professed Christian” to being a “Christian in action” can make all the difference.
After viewing the film in the group, use the two discovery questions below to guide a discussion. What are discovery questions? They are the questions that go beneath the surface and provide an “Ah, ha!” moment that one may remember all one’s life. Although your group may be of any size, for the discussion it is best to form groups of four to six for a more intimate and comfortable sharing.
NOTE: IT IS IMPORTANT TO LET THE QUESTIONS DO THE HEAVY LIFTING. THEY WILL RAISE OTHER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS. RESIST BEING THE ANSWER PERSON. WRITE DOWN AREAS THAT YOU THINK MIGHT BE PRODUCTIVE FOR LATER DISCUSSION. ALLOW A RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS TO DEVELOP.
- What motivated William Wilberforce to stand up against incredible odds and over almost his entire lifetime to free Britain’s slaves and to improve the moral character of English society?
The first question digs beneath the person of William Wilberforce who stood up for abolition of slavery in front of 588 fellow members of Parliament where approximately 30 were for slavery, 30 were for abolition, and the rest weren’t interested in the issue at all. What motivated him to action? In open discussion, the discovery happens. Wilberforce was an engaged Christian of great moral conviction who drew his strength and moral principles from the Bible.
Let your group dig around a bit to see just what it took for this man to undergo ridicule and persecution for his causes. What kind of character did Wilberforce have to do this? What was the role of his friends? You will be surprised at what thoughts and feelings are shared in the group.
- What are you willing to stand up for morally to change the world for the better – to give the world a “better hour” – where you know you will face great opposition including vilification?
The second question digs beneath the surface of each person in the discussion. What is so important to you that you would risk vilification by friends and neighbors to work for its accomplishment? What are the important works that need to be done to create a better world – a world that reflects the glory of its Creator? This second question invites the participants to open themselves to the world’s great physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual needs and to see themselves as agents in addressing those needs.
There is no doubt that our poor world needs changing. Slavery still exists in the world. Millions of the unborn are still dying. HIV AIDS and the need for an abstinence solution still abound. The answers to this question reveal the moral outrage as well as the hope for the future that is in your community group. In the answers to this question are the seeds of actions. Fifty, one hundred, or two hundred years from now people may look back at such actions and say “Thank God for these people!”
Before the discussion ends, determine which issues are of most interest and set a meeting date no later than two weeks hence for a four, six or eight week study of the issues raised in the discussions. The book, Creating the Better Hour: Lessons from William Wilberforce was designed to nourish our response to a world that desperately needs our help.
Step Three: Start a BETTER HOUR GATHERING to improve your community
Before the meeting, ask someone in the group, which could be yourself, to research the issues that the group would like to pursue. Determine what the problem is, what the opposition is and then look at how Wilberforce and his friends dealt with changing people’s minds using CREATING THE BETTER HOUR: Lessons from William Wilberforce which you have already used in Step One
In summary, you can have a great time and enjoy working with others. This is a simple, straightforward program for starting conversations that can inspire change and open hearts and minds. |
