Digger has raised an interesting topic of the church aiming to be relevant.
I strongly believe that the church is incredibly relevant, when it seeks to proclaim the Gospel. When we are aiming for market share and target audiences I believe we miss the point. Very few people give a damn about the songs we sing or the 3 steps to a more powerful prayer life, or the 12 step program to rid yourself of a plague of rabid pubic hair by using Johns gospel 3 times daily! We have tried to be relevant and sold our souls, the very essesance of who we are to do it.
If we seek to love all creation, with integrity, keep and open table and seek God, we will always be relevant, maybe not 'sucessful' but relevant.
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3 comments:
I totally agree with you on this one Pete.
We have totally sold our 'souls' when all we do in worship is aimed at getting more bums on seats - rather than just living simply and proclaiming the Gospel.
I don't know that 'church' the institution will ever be relevant again, but we as the 'church' people can always and should always be relevant - to a world which needs the message of the Gospel more than anything else.
Thanks for your post. I can only agree and perhaps add that we are simply relevant when we show people what God looks like; without then obliging them to come to our 'thing'. It seems that JC did a lot of this, and oddly enough when some wanted to join his 'thing' he would simply tell them to go back to their homes and share what God had done for them. Essentially, spread the testimony of what God looks like.
Well said.
I think that's fair enough too Ruthie. We often limit what emerging looks like. The older generations are often overlooked in the transition to an emergent church. Perhaps left to their own while Gen X goes off in search of the new brave world.
I'm a big believer in being true to who you are rather than contriving something to "become relevant". A multi-generational approach might just see older generations reaching into a culture that's not theirs and giving what they have relationally. What then makes them emergent is taking what they have and going into the world, not bringing people back to their 'thing' at church.
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