Culture Making

Recovering Our Creative Calling

By: Andy Crouch

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Andy Crouch unleashes a stirring manifesto calling Christians to be culture makers. For too long, Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided "culture wars." But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be the creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. By making chairs and omelets, languages and laws, we participate in the good work of culture making.

Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about "changing the world," but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God's own making and transforming of culture.

©2008 Andy Crouch (P)2010 christianaudio.com

Great Reading Experience!

Wonderfully written and beautifully read. Succinct and poetic use of words from an author who is clearly informed, exposed, artistic, reflective, well-versed and well-read. The reading takes the writing to a whole other level, causing inspiration to be an inevitable outcome in any encounter with this book. Well done!

Thought Provoking Look At Culture

We spend so much time talking about culture, discussing the "culture wars", and lamenting the changes that have or haven't happened. But how often do we take a step back to actually consider what it is we are talking about, how very broad the subject is, and what exactly we can and cannot influence and change?

This book takes a look at exactly what is and isn't culture. It defines culture, describes its impacts (big and small), and discusses what we can and cannot control.

I recommend this book as a nice way to get some perspective and learn new ways to consider culture and our part in it.

A must read!

This is one of the most pivotal and essential books of our day. In a world that is full of people seeking for identity and purpose, this nook takes each of us by the hand and helps us explore the very essence of our calling and life purpose. A must read!

Required Reading

This is a book that I honestly think most Christian need to read.

Much of the Evangelical project of the last 50+ years has been about calling the world to God. And while I think the Evangelical church has been rightly moving toward a better sense of engagement with culture, I think that most Christians still think about culture too simplistically. Culture Making is a serious look at how culture impacts faith, how we as Christians can impact culture and the value of focusing efforts toward creation, not just in the church but for the whole world.

In many ways this book is about recoving a sense of vocation (although it does not use that term much.) For Crouch, we all have a role in culture and therefore our roles as Christians are to act as Christians in culture by using our God given talents. But what I like is that Crouch does not just say, "go and do." He really examens the fact that none of us as individuals really have the ability to either predict where culture is going, how our creativity will be recieved or to actually make a long term change in culure. Even those at the highest levels of power have very limited effects on culture.

The call to be culture makers is not without its dangers. Crouch notes "If our excitement about changing the world leads us to the grand illusion that we stand somehow outside the world, knowing what's best for it...we have not yet come to the reality that the world has changed us far more than we will ever change it. Beware of world changers, they have not yet learned the reality of sin." Crouch is not calling for utopiean visions, or political take overs. He is calling for great and small works that nudge culture to God. The utopiean visions will always be corrupted. That is part of the reality of sin and power.

In spite of the warnings and caveats, in the end I was inspired like few other books I have read recently.

I’m Short if Words!

To be honest, this is one book that has changed the way I see the world. It has sparked a new way of thinking in me that would last a lifetime. What this means is that ever so frequently, I would be going back to this book to learn and relearn. I would highly recommend that this this review is not just read but that the book is bought and also gifted to loved ones.

I was well captivated by the Narrator’s style!! He brought life to words and sentences in ways the author just would have meant it to be.

Please read or listen to this book

If I write what I honestly think about this book it will sound like hyperbole. Please read or listen to it.

Life-changing and inspiring!

This book restored my perspective of the larger story I am a part of and renewed my hope and wonder.

Inspirational Masterpiece!

Andy Crouch took me to a higher level of hope and wonder. There are very few books that I read more than once. There are so many thought provoking ideas in this book, I will most certainly be rereading this one many, many times. Thank you Andy Crouch!

JB

ONE OF MY TOP 5

One of the top 5 books I've read...and I have bookshelves!!! Every CHRISTIAN must read for the 21st Century

Brilliant - 1 of my favorites of all time

Would you listen to Culture Making again? Why?

Yes, I have listened to it multiple times already

What was one of the most memorable moments of Culture Making?

Too many to names - it was inspiring