A more unlikely place for a primer on Reformed theology would be hard to find in America. There was no church for miles around. Loud music filtered through the closed windows. Some of the teens who packed the room looked like those who, if walking on a city street, would make you wish you were walking on the other side.

To an audience of Reformed Presbyterians, this workshop would have been helpful, perhaps, but all review. The Bible verses about God being sovereign over the whole creation. About His call on us to use all our gifts and all our lives for His service. About His call to redeem the culture. And, last but not least, about His directive to be in the world but not of the world.

For many of those attending the Purple Door Arts & Music Festival, however, this is not the kind of talk they regularly hear. For some, no doubt, it was brand new. And so Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Bookstore took these budding artists and other interested students carefully through a Reformed perspective on arts, culture, and life, applying it to their situation.

Purple Door, held near Harrisburg, Pa., is an odd animal, to be certain. The big draw is the musicians, but an arts festival and gallery as well as a literary contest and magazine are also prominent at the festival. The bands who play are not well known to general audiences. Many of them make Christian professions and yet have intentionally chosen to play in secular circles as their means of witness.

That philosophy dovetails with Mr. Borger’s workshop. In speaking of Christ’s call for His followers to be in the world and not of it, he pointed out some common pitfalls. Some people end up being both in the world and of the world. Some, to avoid that sin, end up seeming neither in the world nor of it. But actually there is a third sin Mr. Borger warned against: being of the world but not in it. He lamented that many churches and Christians have taken that path of travesty. They’ve developed the safe Christian subcultures that embrace many worldly accoutrements without having to engage the people from that world.

Perhaps we’ve succumbed to that temptation in ways we’ve not fully evaluated. So it’s good to pay attention to those who are putting feet to their faith in this way. In a sense, the people in this issue of the magazine have been in the vanguard in moving to new cities, towns, and countries to try to live amidst the world and yet point people toward Christ. These families are learning as they go, relying on God’s equipping and answering. Sometimes it’s frustrating and uncertain work.

It should be said that I don’t agree with every position taken by Mr. Borger, nor those of somee artists at Purple Door. But they, along with the families who are uprooting themselves to be a witness in places that are largely lost, are pointing the way in conscientiously and sacrificially applying Christ’s directive to be in the world, but not of it.