I met with a thirty-something couple yesterday who was describing the frustration of reaching out to people their own age who had grown up in church youth groups offering a typical ‘relevant’ Gospel. While the appealing music and messages drew crowds together, many of those youngsters somehow missed the reality of a lasting intimacy with Christ. Worse, according to this couple, the youngsters have now grown up, rejected the cultural Christianity they were exposed to, and have the attitude regarding Christianity of “been there, done that.”
Now, let me be fully transparent: my own mantra throughout the eighties and nineties was this very thing: a relevant Gospel in a seeker-sensitive church. Further, I still believe that the Gospel does, indeed, need to be communicated in a way that can be fully grasped by the culture it is planted in. Thus Paul’s statement that he became “all things to all people.”
So here’s the question: How do we keep missing ‘the real?’ How is it that we communicate a Gospel that can draw crowds (or not) yet the reality of the power, life, transformation, mystery, awe, and wonder of that Gospel is not caught?
Yes, the Gospel must get out of the walls and into the streets where it can be most potent. I believe that the church must be committed to this in the way that it walks, talks, and behaves. Thus my own commitment to simple/organic church life.
But, the Gospel must also be… well… potent. Because that is its very nature!
Perhaps the obsession with ‘relevancy’ is not so much the problem as the dependency on methods and program rather than complete reliance on the simple power of the Holy Spirit. And this, then, begs the question of where am I today? Am I still looking for the model, the program, or the method in my quest to serve God and reach out to others—including organic church models and disciplemaking models—or have I been stripped down to the raw bone of just-plain-ole dependency?
“The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart…
“We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood…
“When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking 'God-and' effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.”
— A.W. Tozer
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4 responses to “From ‘Relevant’ to Something Real”
Over the past year or so, I have had the startling realization that the “Gospel” that I have known through 30 years of my life has not been the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but “another gospel.” I have come to believe that the true Gospel opens one’s eyes to the revelation and reality that the individual has become one in actuality, one in consciousness with the Christ, and that as I am willing to believe that His life is all that I have of life, I begin to see His face staring back at me in the mirror(2 Cor.3:18.) No one moves away from their Christianity, who has experienced the glory of the exchanged life. The problem is that Pentecostal/charismatic churches have been preaching their own packaged religion, offering dependency upon man and a system….everything but “Christ my life.” As a result, people have a religious experience with things on the periphery of Christ, but not Christ. It’s easy to move away from an experience, but once having met the Christ within, there is a glory that will never fade.
Good stuff Roger, thanks. My heart resonates here.
Roger,
Thanks for this. I think the angst you feel partly comes from coming from third world places to here where we have all the programs.
I think that’s a blessing. Maybe it’s not you who has to shift gears, but us.
The gospel is nothing unless it is actually lived out in relationships and actions. Even in America, the place we see Jesus is, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these…”
My wife and I feel we are to plant a church, and we find the same thing with so many church planting strategies. You have to do A, B, and C before you can do D. It is seldom I see, anything about stepping out on faith and letting God provide. I know that’s kind of scary, but I notice Jesus always rewarded faith. Not a Jew, but had faith – reward. Rip off the roof of a guys house, but have faith – reward. Step out of the boat – reward(even if it was brief). I want to experience real.