My neighbor Evan (I’ve changed his name) is a successful, extroverted fortysomething: hip, engaging, friendly, and easy to talk to. He’s always willing to lend a hand, an ear, or a tool. His kids are the most respectful and responsible middle-schoolers on the block. Evan and his wife know I’m a pastor; we’ve had them over for dinner; we do our best to initiate as much conversation and front-porch interaction as we can.

Yet Evan doesn’t seem particularly curious about the deeper questions of life. He hasn’t identified any God-shaped hole in his heart. It’s not that he seems hardened or closed off to faith; he just doesn’t appear to have any persistent spiritual hunger.

I sent Evan a text message to invite him to church this past Easter. He never responded.

I think a lot about Evan. I think about him when I preach: How would this message resonate with him? I think about him when I pray: How can I love him and witness to him more faithfully? And I think about him as I lead: How might I help him experience the church—and the gospel it proclaims—as interesting, compelling, and credible?

What I really want is for Evan to see the world differently. I want him to apprehend and be changed by the fact that “the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross.”

It’s God, of course, who must open Evan’s eyes. But the Westminster Confession reminds us that “God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means.” And one of those means is the church. I want my church––and your church—to give our neighbors a new set of “lenses” through which to see the world.

And we can. When churches take seriously our calling as countercultural communities, we start to do the work of cultural apologetics without even thinking about it. Because we love our neighbors and want them to know Christ, we think more intentionally about “how we do what we do.” And without losing any of its depth and richness, what we do starts to reflect the gospel’s transformative power in ways that our neighbors often find compelling. Here are five ways that happens.

1. Preaching That Engages Doubt

“What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you,” Paul declares in Athens (Acts 17:23). He aims his message at the gaps and idiosyncrasies in his hearers’ worldview, graciously confronting their inconsistency. Effective preaching in our late-modern world follows the same pattern.

When churches take seriously our calling as countercultural communities, we start to do the work of cultural apologetics without even thinking about it.

The influence of postmodern epistemology and skepticism means we’re all doubters now. A wise, evangelistically attuned approach to preaching seeks to reveal the flaws and gaps in modern ways of thinking, contrasting the weakness of cultural narratives with the strength and beauty of the gospel.

Editors often instruct journalists, “Show, don’t tell.” Compelling preaching does the same. It doesn’t just tell people what the Bible says; it also shows the gospel to be more existentially satisfying, more intellectually compelling, and more situationally applicable than the cultural narratives on offer around us. This type of preaching takes its stand “between two worlds,” confronting modern worldviews with Scripture while putting the Bible in dialogue with modern concerns.

The church’s preaching is an apologetic.

2. Hospitality That Welcomes the Outsider

Humans are distinctly aware of social cues. We quickly discern in-group and out-group dynamics, and we react accordingly.

Churches that value theological orthodoxy can unintentionally create strong insider-outsider dichotomies: We place those who believe into one category and those who don’t believe into another. But the gospel frees us to emphasize our common humanity without erasing or minimizing our differences. Evan and I share much in common. We’re husbands, fathers, and citizens. We work and play and eat and sleep. We pay taxes and cast votes and root for our favorite teams. We have hopes, dreams, fears, and uncertainties. We love, trust, and worship someone or something.

Churches that love the gospel highlight these shared human realities. They genuinely welcome outsiders by emphasizing our common, shared humanity. This allows them to be bold and forthright in communicating the gospel while displaying humility and generosity toward fellow image-bearers.

The church’s hospitality is an apologetic.

3. Worship That Shows the Arc of the Gospel

Years ago, a wise author posed a provocative question that changed the way I think about worship: “How is your worship service forming the expectations of the people who attend?” My answer was this: “It’s teaching them to expect three fast songs, then two slow songs, then a sermon and a benediction.”

The church I served at the time was a standard evangelical megachurch with little connection to history and no real concern for catechesis. It relied on an emotionally powerful worship experience and a relevant and interesting sermon to do the work of Christian formation.

Thinking about my kids and my neighbors has changed my convictions about Christian worship. Our services now follow the “gospel arc” of historic Christian liturgy, which includes singing, corporate confession of sin, spoken creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and weekly Communion. The order of our worship service communicates something. It moves people along the storyline of Scripture from creation to new creation. It works on an implicit, affective register, drawing people into a pattern of worship that helps them connect the dots of guilt, grace, and gratitude.

The church’s worship is an apologetic.

4. Community That Rejoices in Repentance and Faith

A few years ago, I was invited to a local alumni club meeting for my alma mater. The gathering was held at a sports bar so we could watch our team play an important football game. It quickly became evident that the orienting center of this little community—the thing we gathered to rejoice in—was our football team.

Every community rejoices in something. And a gospel-oriented church rejoices in repentance and faith. We rejoice in confessing our sin, acknowledging our need, being honest about our weakness. We rejoice in the grace of Jesus Christ and the glory of God’s promises in Scripture. And by rejoicing in these, we become strangely countercultural.

A friend said to me recently, “Growing up, I never heard my dad apologize. He never admitted he was wrong about anything. When I first met some Christians, and they were confessing their sin to one another and asking for forgiveness, it radically affected me! I had never experienced that kind of humility.”

The church’s community is an apologetic.

5. Atmosphere of Resilient Hope

Suffering is the one experience guaranteed to every human being: “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33, NIV). And the gospel gives Christians a hearty resilience amid suffering.

The order of our worship service communicates something. It moves people along the storyline of Scripture from creation to new creation.

Paul and Silas, when imprisoned, sang hymns (Acts 16:25). Stephen, when martyred, forgave his attackers (7:60). And Peter, writing to the earliest Christians, urged them to “rejoice insofar as [they] share Christ’s sufferings” (1 Pet. 4:13). Christians don’t “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). Our grief is a hopeful grief.

Because a gospel-loving church is full of human beings, it’ll also be full of death and dementia and divorce and Down syndrome. These things come for us, just as they come for all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. But we face them leaning forward in great hope, anticipating the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. And that speaks volumes to a culture imprisoned by an “immanent frame.”

The church’s hope is an apologetic.

Embrace Our Calling

The church exists to confront the world: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). The church exists as a transformative influence within society: “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13–14). And the church exists as a contrast community, an alternative kingdom to the kingdoms of this world: “Be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).

Since “the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross . . . the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live like it.” The church doesn’t just do apologetics; the church is an apologetic. May we embrace our calling and fulfill it to the glory of God.