So I’m super stoked because I got to wear a new pair of shoes that I got for Christmas today. I know it’s not Christmas yet, but me and my wife exchange gifts early. They’re Steve Madden’s, which I highly endorse and wear. And I am a little bias, but they’re sweet, cool, and any other adjective you’d like to throw out there. But as I stare down at them I begin to wonder why do I really care about what kind of shoe’s I wear? I mean I do love shoes, but there has got to be a deeper reason. And there is—I want to dress in a way that doesn’t look outdated, disconnected, dorky, and irrelevant. I work with teenagers and the last thing I need working against me is irrelevance, right? I want to be relevant. And for whatever reason I believe that my shoes might help me in that pursuit. But as I think about relevance and the importance or unimportance of it I automatically think about the local church. I’ve seen many things done in the name of relevance that make sense and that cause cultural laughter. I’ve also seen many ministries sacrifice many essentials and sound truth in pursuit of being “cool” or progressive. Don’t get me wrong I’m the one buying Steve Madden’s to appear to be relevant to teenagers, so I don’t necessarily disagree with engaging culture in a relevant way, but at what cost? What I’ve seen in leadership and I strongly believe is that we in the church are pretty good at preoccupying ourselves with things that tend to drift us away from the “main thing”. I guess for me it is trying to live in the tension of when it matters to be relevant and when it doesn’t. And I’m pretty sure Jesus has some very glaring examples and ways of life that would be “relevant” to this discussion.
Does the local church need to buy sweet Steve Madden’s to help their image to the culture and society around them? Does relevance matter? And can there be a marriage between cultural relevance and biblical faithfulness? Can the church be irrelevant to culture and be highly effective in reaching cities, communities, and families for Christ? What could relevance look like beyond expensive sound equipment, cool architectural design, and highly produced services?
Dictionary.com / Relevance: applicability and pertinence.
Let’s Discuss.
Jeff
Does the local church need to buy sweet Steve Madden’s to help their image to the culture and society around them? Does relevance matter? And can there be a marriage between cultural relevance and biblical faithfulness? Can the church be irrelevant to culture and be highly effective in reaching cities, communities, and families for Christ? What could relevance look like beyond expensive sound equipment, cool architectural design, and highly produced services?
Dictionary.com / Relevance: applicability and pertinence.
Let’s Discuss.
Jeff
14 comments:
Relevance means nothing if the message is lame. I could be a very culturally relevant marshmallow salesman and make no impact. Likewise, the message must be conveyed in the context of a culture. If not, the message will not be heard. (And no, it is not only the culture's fault if it rejects a message that doesn't speak to their reality).
It is not a balance because that implies you must sacrifice one to boost the other. I like your term "tension". The message (if it is the right message) is confrontational and difficult. However, the medium by which the message is conveyed must not add to the difficulty of the message. This causes tension because the audience connects with the message's medium and is simultaneously challenged by the message. Don't be afraid of tension!
The real question is, "To whom are we relevant?" Churches that cater to young city dwellers are often deemed relevant while churches that live in a culture of a different time and place are thought to be out of touch. There is a culture beyond MTV.
Don't be afraid to be relevant to your own culture. If your culture is artistic and urban, be relevant to them. If your culture is a bunch of retired cowboys, be relevant to them. If you live in a culture of hardworking, mostly Asian, casino employed parents -- be relevant to them.
Being relevant to someone else's culture doesn't count.
Jeff, you need a lot more help than a pair of shoes--Steve Madden or not.
The interesting thing to me is the number of churches that have made this move toward relevance. The mode of the the new (or perhaps it's already old) ecclesiology is edgy, contemporary, relevant, etc... This is characterized by cool band, cool pastor, cool videos, cool logos, cool people. It's all geared toward cool. Churches have little tag lines..."not church as usual" "a different kind of church" "church for a new generation" et al. But the funny thing is ALL these churches are doing the exact same thing. They parody, mimic and model one another to an extent that none of them are doing anything new, edgy, or different. In the quest to be a "different" kind of a church for a "new" generation they have become like everybody else. That is the essence of irony.
It all seems much less about being relevant to the cultural context, and more about modeling what the "successful" church on the other side of town is doing. and by successful I mean the church drawing the biggest crowd. This is not contextualization, it's pragmatism. This is church leaders saying, cool works, let's run with cool for a while.
I don't want a cool church. I can find cool elsewhere. I don't want good coffee at church. Church is supposed to have bad coffee...I can get good coffee elsewhere. I don't want my pastor to wear a cool t-shirt and put lots of product in his hair. I want him to teach me the bible. My preference would be for him to spend more time in the Scriptures than at Urban Outfitters picking out jeans.
This is a popular question. Derek Webb says of the Gospel "you can dress her like the culture, but she'll shock them just as well." He also says "she don't need an apology for being who she is. And she doesn't need your help making enemies." I would venture to say that the pursuit of relevance in the local congregation is too important. It's imperative that we are knowledgeable of the world around us that we live in (and not of) and that we interact with it. But we have no need for imitation or compromise. Let's face it, if we know the Gospel then we know it doesn't need to be coupled with anything because it's so good!
With shoes as the example: I own a pair of skate shoes. If I'm not wearing those, I'm going without (because I don't believe in owning a lot of possessions) and my youth love it all the same. No matter what hip style you sport, it only connects to a certain group (or two if you're lucky). Since we are concerned with all people, we simply live according to the message of simplicity found in the Gospel. [Joshuaobserves made a good point by the way that you need to be personal to your surroundings] I'm finding more and more that teenagers don't care as much about how cool you are but more about what you have to say and if you are faithful to your message and to them.
Local congregations as a whole often do silly things like give away bumper stickers that say "iPray" or attempt to put on concerts every Sunday morning. It's safe to say that a lot of our brothers and sisters are trapped in the lies of society that "it's all about me" or that your image matters (or our congregations image). We know G-d does not judge the exterior and we know that it is the matter of the heart that is important. Sometimes, we seek the congregation before the kingdom. Sometimes we seek the culture before the kingdom. That's idolatry, and it's also heartbreaking.
Again, it's great to be up to date, and it's fine to be fashion forward (when it fits into the discipline of simplicity and doesn't oppress others, like when you support nike lol) and it's even permissible to buy nice sound equipment for your congregational meetings but as soon as we become slaves to anyone but Christ, or we seek anything above the kingdom, or neglect the gospel truth, then we're in trouble.
So just shop at the thrift store man and get discount shoes from friends who work in the shoe store lol.
I really appreciate everyone's comments. I haven't heard anyone really push the importance of relevance which leads me to ask, don't you think it does carry a little weight in connecting to culture? Doesn't "image" or perceived relevance matter? How many people do you know who are choosing old mediums over new ones? I doubt I would find myself in a church that is singing the youtube favorite, "Jesus is a friend of mine." It's great, check it out. I think we are all more influenced by our own need for relevance than we might think. Because our needs differ greatly it can look many ways. It can look like the cool church with the cool pastor, but it also can look like church built around social justice or a church that values the academic/intellectual side of our faith. Relevance is so relative that we would all be hard pressed to smash it, because we're a part of it. Like Travis said, as long as we don't sacrifice the message in pursuit of relevance I think a church can have good coffee and have pastors who wear Steve Madden's.
Like always...it's a Jesus thing. Relevance is such a "hip", "relevant" word that we often forget that Jesus was extremely relevant. Relevance is taking the timeless message of the gospel and communicating it in a way that people in a particular time, culture, and context can connect with God. If that is it... I all for it.
For some it may be good coffee and the latest hip shoes. Like it or not, most of us (generality I know) would not choose to attend a worship gathering where the choruses were from the 70's and the messages were recycled. The gospel is fresh, growing, and always moving. Our current state of relevance reflects that. I think the tension is that we cannot chase relevance. Relevance is something that must flow naturally to the community we find ourselves in.
By the way... I'm looking for my first pair of vintage Chuck Taylor's. Relevance is cyclical.
Jeff it's clear from everyone's comments that your pair of steve madden's makes you a sinner and worldly.
Sweet--my steve madden's do something to me that is for sure. Anytime we can get a shout out from Bishop Lee Coate I'm thrilled. Lee I glad you brought Jesus into this because that is where we should look in the midst of this conversation. What's tough to transfer is that Jesus would not have been a compelling case for cool, emerging, etc... I'm not sure that he went about his life concerned about image control or he fit in with the "look" of culture, so it does make it more difficult to justify some of our own pursuits when it comes to the "accesories" of ministry. What made Jesus relevant was his definately his message which has been stated previously and also his willingness and frequency of meeting people's emotional and physical needs as well. Meeting people with love, service, and compassion has always been relevant and always will be relevant. The message and the application is what makes even the oldest, dustiest, and robe wearing churches very culturally relevant.
Don't know if you remember this, cause I barely do, but at Ignite 08 I spent a little bit of time in my talk explaining the way Paul viewed himself in ministry. In writing to the Corinthian church Paul told them he was earthen vessel--a clay pot. But in the pot he carried a great treasure--the gospel. The container was nothing, the contents was everything.
And if you remember one of the indictments against Paul by the Corinthian church was that he was not winsome or attractive. The trained Pharisee from Tarsus was a geek to those in cosmopolitan Corinth. This led him to say to the church at Corinth "I do not preach myself, but only Christ."
What would have happened if Paul sought to be more Corinthian, yet somehow true to the gospel message? The overall strength of the book of 1 Corinthians would be lost...that much is for sure. But then again, you can't really argue for the methodology of Paul with a church that does not hold the theology of Paul.
I quote Spurgeon, who was being urged by a certain Scot to preach more to the current times. Spurgeon said, "You preach to the times, I'll preach to the ages."
When I think of relevance I first and foremost ask what am I doing in the first place. And as a church I see it as silly to try and be relevent to culture. Does a hospital try to be relevant?? Does a bank?? Does a school?? There are several places that we all must go in our lives that are not relevant to culture.
Can the church be relevant to culture?? Yes. But I do not think striving towards it is the goal.
Read 2Kings 22-23.
The Word of GOD is more relevant than we can ever be.
Jeff and I discussed this topic a little face to face.
His comment/question was: Why can't churches be place where seekers are comfortable (the relevance question) and not compromise the message?
My response was because a biblically uncompromised message will make seekers uncomfortable. "The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing." For a lost person the message is necessarily discomforting. Whatever attempts are made at relevance/coolness/cultural awareness are smokescreens when the biblical gospel is proclaimed. The gospel breaks through all that veneer.
Which led us to the second question. This one posed by me: Why so much attention on making our church gatherings palatable to non-Christians...isn't the church gathered meant to edify the church--believers?
We batted this around for a bit, but my conclusion to the questions is because professional ministers want to leverage their programming to reach people rather than leveraging the most relevant ministry equipment the church has--its people.
There is a consistent theme I find in conversations that lend themselves to the idea that there cannot be a both / and. I do think its very possible to leverage programming to reach people for Christ and leverage and empower people to reach those who don't know Christ. You don't have to choose a side. Also, there is assumption that you can't create an environment for "seekers" without compromising the hard and uncomfortable truth of Christ. Again I believe they can both coexist.
I do not think cultural relevance is as essential to those who know Christ, but for those who are disenchanted with the church and the messengers of the church I think it's critical. There are too many stereotypes and cultural barriers that are in play via the media, the neighbor, or the awesome church signs that we have to move past to get into a position to speak into someone's life. Could it be possible that the mediums and methods of the church are crucial to reaching those who are far from God? The message stays the same, but shouldn't different methods and mediums should be used when engaging with a culture who is skeptical, curious, and cynical. It's hard for me to accept that the same philosophy should be used for both.
I think we have a responsibility to create a environment somewhere, somehow to allow those far from God to engage with God and His truth. I think we have put our own opinions, not biblical backing on why that couldn't be on a Sunday morning. We still should create an environment for spiritual maturity and growth for those who know God, but how does it really bring Kingdom value to create all of our environments to serve the needs of the believer?
Last time I checked followers of Christ aren't doing a great job in the "marketplaces" of today engaging culture and distributing truth on a regular basis. In most cases they are creating greater barriers for many to find Christ.
Let's not overlook Paul's words in I Corinthians 9, "To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."
When cultural relevance is centered and rooted in reaching people for the sake of Christ it's hard for me to think it's honoring God.
Correction: When cultural relevance is centered and rooted in reaching people for the sake of Christ it's hard for me to think it's not honoring God.
Jeff, We are almost agree...almost.
I guess you continue to prove my point in regards to leveraging people.
You talk about "creating environments" and harnessing "methods" as if buildings, set lists, and welcome centers are THE means to being relevant, and I am just saying quit trying so dang hard.
If you like Steve Madden's and dark rimmed glasses wear them, not because you think they make you relevant or somehow give you traction amongst non-believers. I really can't imagine that they do. I do, however, believe that crowds draw crowds. So if your crowd is wearing steve maddens, cool jeans and affliction t-shirts you are likely to draw that kind of crowd. But it's the crowd that becomes relevant...not necessarily the programming. It's the crowd that will embrace seekers and visitors, not your pamphlets, and videos. And it's the biblical message that will change their hearts, not the cool factor. The programming needs to remain principle driven, rather than relevance driven...and the people need to be your connection points, not the top 40 radio song played during the offeratory.
By in large churches do end up looking like their leadership, and I'm not sure that has much to do with "methods" and "environments." Again, it has to do with people. IT also places a burden on developing a diverse leadership team that is representative of the context in which the church exists.
this is funny and DeYoung's commentary is relevant to the conversation our conversation on relevance:
http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/01/jesus-came-to-save-grimace-and.html
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