The other week I was completing one of my very common routines. I was looking through some ministry videos and came across a video that got me thinking. In the video, a man was interviewing people on the street about if they attended church. The interesting part of the video came when people began to respond why they didn't attend church. The common answer was "it's not relevant to today".
Is God not relevant? Could it be possible that God, the very creator of reality as we know it, could have become antiquated and obsolete?
I think a better explaination is that perhaps Christians often fail to be relevant. And I really think it is an honest mistake.
The truth is we spend our Christians lives studying a book that, well...to be honest...is really old! It has been around for thousands of years and we base what we know about God on it. All of sudden, it becomes easy to how we might be perceived as outdated.
What people don't see (because we fail to communicate it) is that even though the Bible is old...it is not dead. That's what we a really talking about right?! A faith that is perceived as dead or dying.
But that's not my faith! God's word is a LIVING word. That means that it functions like most living things; it grows, it adapts, and it interacts with us. It grows in prayer by the author Himself speaking to us. It adapts in it's form to apply ot our situations. It interacts because it's very instruction is life changing.
So why do people see as irrelevant? Something I see to often is our presentation of God's Word as finite and complete. We present God's Word as if it is established fact ... done and finished. No need for discussion, no need for explanation. But God's Word is not fact or a complete thought. It is continuous dialogue with God.
Might I suggest that we can be more relevant if we presented God's Word as the start of a dialogue. I really can see that if show people the way to God, not to completion, he will show them the Living Word we are so often unable to communicate.
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2 comments:
I agree. I think the relevance doesn't fall short with God. God falls short at nothing. How can He when He made everything? Christians are irrelevant. We use Christianese, we're judgemental, we're condemning, we're legalistic...I can go on and on. Are all Christians this way? Absolutely not, but these are the ones you hear about. You never hear on the news about how many lives have been saved through the works of missionaries in Africa. You never hear about how churches are continually feeding the homeless and starving, sending clothes and toiletries. No, you hear about a mom that threw her kids off of a bridge in California because God told her to. You hear about David Coresh (spelling?) and the Branch Davidians. And on and on.
I'm going to bring this old saying out, but it is really something to think about. WWJD - What Would Jesus Do? Before we judge, before we throw a fit because the sanctuary was painted, before we worry about ourselves and not worry about another area of the church, what would Jesus do? Jesus came to serve. Are we doing that, or are we whining and crying about something that is irrelevant? "Why is that important?"
"I know nothing but Christ and Him crucified." - 1 Cor 2:2
When can the church bring this back? When can we start serving and worrying about others as we are commanded to do? When can we stop judging something because it is different or not "of the norm"? Why do people think that preaching while done in a suit and conserative haircut is so much more holy than preaching done in jeans, with spiked hair and a lip ring?
Jesus was a freak in his day. The King came from Heaven to be a man not to rule over a country, but to bring His people...His children home. To be a sacrifice to His children so that they may spend eternity with Him. Why have we and continually insult our God with this petty stuff and when can we get over ourselves so that we can regain our relevancy to compliment and glorify the God that gave us life and the one and only true God that deserves our love and praise and worship?
Wow. Let it all out wh don't ya! The truth is, throuh all that emotion is a really valid point and, in light of that, I have a question. Do we really want to be more Christ-like? Now I know that interpretations of that differ but I think people should ask themselves if that is truly their pursuit. Obviously we live in an age where some may desire to be more Osteen-like, Hagee-like, or Parsely-like. And this is due to same exposure factor mentioned iin your response (branch dividians, etc.) Could it be that Jesus's notoriety has been eclipsed by that of those who operate in His name?
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