Being trained in the school of Stanley Hauerwas, where the role of the church is to set up an alternative culture that shapes people in ways that counter the ways that culture shapes them, I found the following at NextReformation.  I thought it was helpful this morning as we prepare for another discipleship class after a week where prayer has been emphasized.

If culture is a cultivating force, then the assertions follow:
1. we are always being discipled. The only question is what or whom is forming us.
2. we will not effectively maintain a discipleship “program” or curriculum without addressing the larger context of formation (the dominant culture)
3. an effective discipling movement must succeed at some level in generating an alternative culture.
4. The Church is intended to be a discipling movement, and therefore, is intended to be an alternative (kingdom) culture.
5. Culture is maintained by language and practices. An alternative culture must have a unique linguistic fund — a grammar of its own. It must also maintain shared covenant practices.

There ya' go.  

So, how do we provide alternative languages and practices in the church to make Christian disciples as opposed to more disciples of the dominant worldly culture?