Looking for a Great Small Group Bible Study Idea?
Are you looking for your next small group Bible study idea? Cancel the Culture will lead you through a series of 12 challenges meant to pull you away from the influence of culture, and draw you closer to God.
While the culture has sought to cancel Christians and Christianity, the truth is that we should have canceled many things about the world’s culture a long time ago. We have to break the strongholds of culture’s influence over us as a holy people.
In Cancel the Culture, you will find encouragement to:
- Be different on social media
- Pull away from the spirit of materialism
- Rid yourself of the influence of pornographic material
- Get free of the deceptive trap of the world’s entertainment
- Pursue unity over division
- Protect yourself and loved ones from dark forces in online gaming
- Avoid the pitfalls of secular education
We are not going to reach the culture if we are living just like them. We have to be different to make a difference!
You can use this book as a personal challenge to cancel the influence of culture in your own life. But even better, your small group, Bible study, or Sunday school class can walk through these together as weekly or monthly challenges.
There are people in your church who are falling for the lies of culture right now, and you can use this book to snatch them from the flames.
Foreword to Cancel the Culture
Imagine a perfect shower, maybe like the ones Adam and Eve took in paradise under a glistening waterfall. Pristine, crystal clear water thoroughly blankets the skin at just the right temperature—relieving every ounce of stress and washing away every impurity.
That’s what this book is for the body of Christ.
More than just a battle cry, this book is a purification that uses the living water of Jesus’ Words. If we could do the simple things outlined in this book—things that would pull us away from the world and toward our Father—we would experience life that is so much more abundant than the one we have now.
This book holds up a humbling mirror to us, the church, showing us countless ways our culture tricks us and coaxes us into the shadows. If you’re overdue for a refreshing in Christ, let God revive the warrior in you.
Jesus has called all of us to surrender the ways of the flesh. But for some reason, we keep getting bound by the lies of the world’s culture. Most of us struggle way more than we should with letting ourselves be contaminated by the world, the culture, and the lies of the enemy. Bishop Lambert is unapologetically urging all of us to break the culture’s chains and take hold of the freedom available to us in Christ.
But he’s not doing it for us alone. When Jesus returns, He is going to ask all of us what we did for the least of these. What impact did we have on this world?
Bishop Lambert’s simple but profound message is that we cannot have an impact by being just like everyone else, or as he puts it, “We have to be different to make a difference.” So what kind of difference will your life make?
God willing, may this book be a pivotal moment in your life—one which helps determine your answer to this eternally significant question.
Jeremy Lamont
Publisher
GODSPEED Magazine
Introduction to Cancel the Culture
by Bishop Eric Lambert Jr.
Many Christians are trapped in a struggle for identity. We are members of the kingdom of God. In many ways we are also firmly entrenched as members of our culture. Yet God’s people have always been set apart for a special purpose. We are not called to be like everyone else.
Just like Daniel and his Jewish companions did not fully participate in the Babylonian culture, we cannot fully participate in this culture. We cannot impact the world for God if we look, sound, and behave exactly like the world. So most of us are left with this tension. We have questions.
Where do we fit in as Christians?
Does the Bible contain the genuine laws of the kingdom of God, or did people add their insights and views to the texts?
Should the Bible alone direct our actions, or do we have to adapt the teachings of the Bible to fit the culture of our day?
Does scientific evidence prove that we can’t take the Bible to be without error?
Are we allowed to select the principles and patterns of the world over the Word of God?
Is the Bible ultimately just one of many spiritual books meant to guide people in the right direction?
Many Christians struggle with these questions. If we don’t come to solid conclusions, these questions cause us to drift further and further from our true identity in Christ. Hopefully, this book will take each of us on a journey of rediscovering our identity as sons and daughters of the One True God.
As we walk down this path, my prayer is that we would start to recover our distinctiveness. My aim is that we would remember we are called to be different—set apart for a special purpose. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
We have a long way to go in order to look like a people who live by God’s Word. But we can take steps to get there. This book contains 12 chapters with 12 challenges—one for each month of the year. Each challenge is designed to move the body of Christ one step closer to our status as a holy people.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV
Many of us quote this well-known verse, and we do our best to follow its instructions. We pray, seek the Lord, and cry out to Him to heal our land. But in addition to humbling ourselves, praying, and seeking God’s face, this verse also prescribes for God’s people to turn away from all wickedness. For whatever reason, this part of the Scripture is often ignored.
However, God is very serious about His people living different from non-believers.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
Ephesians 5:3-11 NIV
As you read this book, please open your heart to the Lord. Ask Him what He is saying to you, and what He wants you to do. Let Him examine you and search you. Allow Him to challenge your mind and your spiritual walk. Let Him draw you closer to Himself.
In many ways, we have lost our identity to the secular culture. These are the last days. If we are ever going to return to God, the time is now.
Together we can, and we will, regain our identity as the people of God.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bishop Eric Lambert Jr. is the Senior Pastor of Bethel Deliverance International Church, a 5,000 member church in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. He also serves as the President and Presiding Bishop for the Bethel Deliverance International Fellowship of Churches. He is the host of the TV show, Climbing Higher. The show airs Sundays at 7:30 am and 5:30 pm on the IMPACT Network, which broadcasts all around the world. Bishop Lambert’s Climbing Higher radio show can be heard on various stations in Philadelphia. Bishop Lambert has a heart to mobilize the Church to impact the world for Christ.