Cultivating a Culture of Hope in Local Churches

A glance at the headlines reveals the ubiquity of concern about death. War looms. Violent protests rage. Flu-related deaths are on the rise. Want to live longer? Play tennis, apparently.[1] In one way or another, the world is preoccupied with death.

And so are Christians. Believers courageously pray, speak, and act against the “culture of death” that characterizes our world.[2] Advocates lobby against medical assistance in dying. Ordinary saints volunteer for crisis pregnancy centers. Churches host food pantries.

These efforts are commendable. They express neighbor love; they adorn the gospel.[3] But if the faithful Christian response to death takes these forms exclusively, we risk succumbing to the very culture we critique. How? In our flurry of activity, we neglect to prepare for our own deaths. We become so earthly-minded that our heavenly hope does us no good.

Faithful Christian action in our culture of death must include critique, engagement, and advocacy—but none of these responses should be primary. Rather, we must re-learn how gospel-centered, church-shaped living is “training for how to hope in the face of death.”[4]

Who can courageously critique and oppose our world’s culture of death? Those who await life beyond death.

The saints of old understood that living for Christ involves preparing to die in Christ. Lewis Bayly’s devotional manual, The Practice of Piety, was one of the most popular books of its time.[5] He gives directions concerning a vast array of topics in practical Christian living. But he also devoted over 100 pages (of 464) to how the believer may glorify God in sickness and death. This bestselling book on Christian living had a lot to say about Christian dying.

Do we—pastors and church members—help our brothers and sisters prepare for death? Pastors, how can you ensure that when your flock gathers they exit the world’s culture of death and enter a culture of hope in the face of death?[6]

First, preach eschatology. I do not mean that you should display prophecy charts or preach Revelation on a continuous loop. Rather, in your expositions, do not pull a passage’s eschatological teeth to connect it to “real life.” After all, real life ends in real death. God’s word answers death with resurrection and the hope of the age to come. Embrace its relentless orientation to last things.

Second, pray publicly for future hope. We face many trials in this life. A caring pastor could fill his public pastoral prayers with petitions for pressing needs like healing from illness, recovery from injury, or courage for surgery. Pray for these things—and pray that your flock would rely on their sovereign God, not themselves (2 Cor 1:9). Pray that they would eagerly await the resurrection, when their bodies will be incorruptible (1 Cor 15:50-57). Pray that they would hasten Christ’s coming, when there will be no more pain (Rev 21:4). Prayers like these teach your church to hope not only in God’s present provision, but his future, certain victory.

Third, sing about heaven. Lewis Bayly’s old book challenges our conception of the Christian life. Old hymns do the same. Many of the great 18th- and 19th-century evangelical hymns orient the church to eternity. Samuel Medley’s “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” stirs our hope in the resurrection: “I know that my Redeemer lives… / What comfort this sweet sentence gives…!” Joseph Bromehead’s “Jerusalem My Happy Home” expresses the saints’ longing for the heavenly Mount Zion: “Jerusalem, my happy home, / When shall I with you be? / When shall my sorrows have an end? / Your joys when shall I see?” Does your church heartily sing hymns like these?

Fourth, frame the ordinances thoughtfully. It is true that baptism portrays regeneration, which the church should joyously celebrate. It is true that the Lord’s Supper depicts the church’s unity and is thus an occasion to celebrate Christian fellowship. Yet foundationally, both signify union with Christ in his death (Rom 6:4; 1 Cor 10:16) and resurrection.[7] Therefore, the ordinances are deposits of hope in the face of death. Baptism assures us that “we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5). The Lord’s Supper is a proclamation of “the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). In your church, are the ordinances administered so that your people’s faith and hope are directed to Christ crucified, raised, and returning?

Who can courageously critique and oppose our world’s culture of death? Those who await life beyond death. The gospel of Christ crucified and raised, and the kind of life it engenders, embodied the local church, trains us to hope in the face of death, and thereby sustains faithful Christian action in this present evil age.

If you wish to consider these themes further, Dr. Quinn recommends John Wyatt’s Dying Well; Dying Faithfully.

Photo retrieved from Unsplash.

[1] Simar Bajaj, “The Best Sports for Longevity,” Lifestyle, The New York Times (New York), January 15, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/well/move/sports-exercise-longevity.html.

[2] To the best of my knowledge, the phrase “culture of death” was popularized by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Holy See, Dicastery for Communication, March 25, 1995, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html). It has been widely used since then, both in official Catholic social teaching and other publications unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, to describe modern culture’s failure to preserve life and encourage policies, practices, and institutions that support it.

[3] For a careful, concrete exploration of how good deeds relate to the word of the gospel, see Alex DiPrima, Spurgeon and the Poor: How the Gospel Compels Christian Social Concern (Reformation Heritage Books, 2023).

[4] Chris Karnadi, “Kavin Rowe: Recovering the Surprise of Christianity,” Faith and Leadership, October 13, 2020, https://faithandleadership.com/kavin-rowe-recovering-the-surprise-christianity.

[5] Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety: Directing a Christian to Walk, That He May Please God, with Joel R. Beeke and Grace Webster (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2019). Joel Beeke notes in his introduction, “In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this work was the most universally read English book of devotion next to Pilgrim’s Progress.”

[6] While I am not a pastor, I am a spoiled church member. My pastors frequently remind our church that eternity is coming. I offer the following advice not as an expert, but as a grateful church member who has learned much from his pastors.

[7] For a penetrating analysis of the significance of union with Christ as raised, see Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (P&R Publishing, 2000). For a shorter, pastoral meditation on the same theme, see Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “The Usefulness of the Cross,” Westminster Theological Journal 41, no. 2 (1979): 228–46.