“Keeping a Pulse on Culture”

When asked about how to keep a pulse on culture, Scott Hodge had some good insights I thought you would enjoy.

I cannot vouch for these blogs, books, or churches, and I could think of a few others to include – perhaps I will put a list together sometime soon which would include PFP 🙂 , but here is Scott’s answer:

1. Read blogs! Subscribe to a number of blogs that seem in touch with culture (and not just ministry blogs…): Ragamuffin Soul, Eric Bryant, Ethur Blog, Joe Thorn, Steve McCoy, Arts & Letters Daily, Boing Boing, Jordon Cooper, Seth Godin, Tim Stevens, Church Marketing Sucks, Tony Morgan, Dave Ferguson, Kem Meyer, Tallskinnykiwi, Johnny Baker, Catalyst Leader Feeder. (Gosh, there are so many more….but there’s a start.)
2. Subscribe to some magazines that are in touch with current culture. Here are a few I subscribe to: Fast Company, Wired Magazine, Relevant Magazine, Collide Magazine
3. Subscribe to some podcasts. Here are a few of my favorites: This American Life, VH1 Best Week Ever, The Relevant Podcast, TED.
4. Get rid of the PC and buy a Mac. 🙂 Ok, I’m sort of kidding. (keyword: sort of…)
5. Twitter and Facebook. Everyone’s doing it and it’s a great way to keep a pulse on a lot of different cultural conversations.
6. Read a lot of books. A few recommendations:Pop Goes The Church by Tim Stevens
   The Reason for God by Tim Keller
   Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren
   A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren
   Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
   Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
   Prophetic Untimeliness by Oz Guinness
   The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
   unChristian by Gabe Lyons
   They Like Jesus, But Not The Church by Dan Kimball
7. Browse new and most popular music in iTunes. This is a great way to hear what’s happening musically in our culture. The 30-second snippets are great!
8. Go to some conferences that will stretch and challenge you. A few recommendations:Catalyst Conference – it’s BIG, but you’ll get a good feel for what’s happening among young leaders.
   Innovate – none will be as good as last year’s (that’s when I spoke, ha, ha…), but this is a great conference put on by my friends from Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana.
   Q – Expensive, but DEFINITELY a unique conference that asks the question, “How can the church begin INFLUENCING culture?”
9. Visit some churches who are DOING IT. A few that I have my eye on:Imago Dei – A beautiful missional church in Portland.
   Community Christian Church – Naperville, IL (The best at reproducing I’ve ever seen)
   Granger Community Church – Granger, IN – Using pop culture to their advantage in a HUGE way.
   Mosaic – LA – Creating culture.
   NewSong Church – LA – Love the global thinking at NewSong. The more I learn about Dave Gibbons, the more I want to crawl inside his brain.Dang, there are so many… I can’t even begin to list out all the ones who are making it happen. These are just a few.
10. Listen to teenagers. Like you mentioned, he will keep you up on what’s happening. Since teens CRANK at technology and media, they are up on what’s going on culturally better than anyone.
11. Be yourself. No matter what, be yourself. Don’t TRY to be like anybody else. Our culture can sniff that a million miles away. Doesn’t mean there won’t be room for improvement or opportunity to have a better grasp on culture, but you will be at your best when you are being who God made you to be.

The question I’m asking right now is how do we move BEYOND imitating culture and into CREATING culture? That’s my dream. To create, impact and move culture in a way that makes our churches irreplaceable.

BUT….before we can do that, we have to make sure we are in tune with where culture is at right now. The church hasn’t always done a great job at that – proven by the fact that MOST churches are CHASING culture (because MOST are years BEHIND it.) But the church’s best days are when we are no longer chasing or imitating culture, but actually shaping it!