Brown University made a decision this week to prevent its own assistant professor, Lisa Littman, from publishing her research article in a peer-reviewed journal. Professor Littman did a study on “sudden onset gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria occurs when a person feels and/or identifies as a gender they were not born with. Crossing gender lines is not new, but the sudden onset of gender dysphoria was very unusual. I say “was” because, recently, many young people are suddenly deciding they are the wrong gender without any previous indications they were struggling with their gender identity.

Professor Littman’s research was a search for answers for the huge increase in numbers of cases and the sudden onset factor. What she found is that the chances that a young person, especially women, will suddenly decide that they were born the wrong gender is affected by peer pressure and online influences.

I am not making a judgment about transgender people. We have plenty of that flowing around our online culture already. My heart hurts for young people dealing with this struggle and especially those who have had extreme, life-altering surgery hoping to find their way forward.

I’m just amazed that we need research to discover the obvious! It’s obvious that culture is a powerful influence. It influences us whether we know it or not. Our world will press us into its mold if it can. (See Romans 12:1-2)  Peer pressure will shape our identity if we don’t securely choose to identify with Jesus!

Cultures can be good influences if the culture is good! Every local church has its own little powerful culture. The Early Church had a discipling, evangelizing, fellowshipping, loving, serving, Spirit-led culture. It wasn’t perfect but it was an amazing counterculture to the world around it. In the 4th Century, the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Patriarchy and institutionalism changed things. Women were no longer equals in pastoring and leading the church. Church leaders started wearing the same kind of robes as the Roman Court did. And ritual took precedent over Presence. The unbiblical ideas of celibacy, clergy class distinction, and hierarchies set in. The church morphed into something far removed from the Kingdom culture God wanted.

The world still presses into the church. So I’m thinking about the future for our church and the kind of culture we want to work to create at WWCN. We’re not the Early Church and shouldn’t try to be. But, the world presses in and presses us into its mold! Culture operates like swimming in the ocean when currents are strong. You think you’re swimming one direction only to discover culture has carried you the other direction!

I don’t claim to have it all figured out. I do know that we need solid anchors that negate the cultural currents we exist within. We have to be purposeful and intentional  in order to bring Kingdom culture to our world without becoming part of the world’s culture.

Here are the basic anchors that hold us fast. Together, we’ll love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength at WWCN. And we’ll also love people like Jesus does. (Matthew 22:34-40) We will get better at making disciples of all nations by bringing them to Jesus and teaching them how to really live for him. (Matthew 28:16-20) And we’re going to do it in the power of the Holy Spirit rather than trying to make it happen ourselves. (See Acts 1-2)  So it will require unity and prayer and sacrifice but it will be fun and exciting and abundant!

The question is, “How, exactly, do we create the Kingdom culture where we are?” That’s a question Jesus is pleased with. He even included it in his example prayer:  “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

Let’s get started becoming that discipling, evangelizing, fellowshipping, loving, serving, Spirit-led culture together where we are now!

I pray that you’ll have power to comprehend how huge God’s love really is and just how much God loves you.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Mark Ramsey