The secular world holds many opinions about the culture of the Christian church, many of which are negative, but there are a number of things that the secular world acknowledges that the Christian church does very well. Among these strengths are community building, organization and diversity. Not all of these things may initially seem like strengths of the church to members of secular society, but a closer inspection of Christian culture reveals that they are present and highly developed.
Firstly, it is undeniable to mainstream culture that the church has a long history of establishing strong community. As far as organizations go, the Christian church is a model for getting people together in one place to connect with one another. They establish and cater to every level of human connection and relationship, offering groups for married couples, singles, teenagers and children. They bring all of these groups together for sermons or parts of sermons, as well as for gatherings like potlucks. It is for this reason that the church is known to effectively come together to ease grief, end addiction and problem solve together.
Secondly, as a byproduct of strong faith communities, mainstream culture acknowledges that the Christian church can be a very effective institution for organizing and executing plans. The church can show for itself a reputation of being an active organization. The church is responsible for some incredibly effective organizations, such as the Salvation Army and Alcoholics Anonymous. Church organizations themselves, as well as the organizations that came from Christian culture, are incredibly effective at executing their goals.
And lastly, some of mainstream culture recognizes that, despite the Christian church’s unpopular views on gay marriage and abortion, diversity does exist within the church and Christians deserve respect as individuals instead of as a stereotype. Any group of people that contains hundreds of millions of members is bound to have diversity within it. Christians are free to identify themselves as Christians and be liberal or conservative, gay or straight, from any ethnicity and from any social class.