October 12, 2006
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A Relevant Gospel? Part1.4
Where is the line
between cultural relevance and becoming like culture? And what is a
culturally relevant gospel?
At the same time I see how
Paul (mainly), and Jesus (sometimes), would use culturally relevant themes (ex- the
unknown god) and for G-d's glory. Paul taught that G-d did not
expect Greeks to become Jews and vice versa, but he taught a gospel of freedom
from worldly trappings and slavery to Christ alone. I think we can and
should use tools of technology, after all they are the fuel for cultural change
anyways, but we should use them for the cause of the gospel. If the culture is going to be changed
shouldn’t it be through the life transforming power of the gospel. Just think of the amazing impact Christ
follower’s can make if we used all forms of media inappropriate settings to
communicate and impact our culture. The
key however is the medium cannot become the focus of our ministry or it could
be detrimental to the gospel. If the tools become the key to our
ministries, it also becomes the Christ or Lord of our lives. Who of you
in ministry have felt at some point that being the coolest, hippest and most relevant
ministry consumed you to the point where you rarely thought about Jesus and was
always looking to be relevant?
I know I have.
Comments (1)
have you read "The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture"? It's a great read and in it, the author makes the point that in any culture that communicates symbolically that there is an increased sensativity to the mystical. He uses the example of Eastern characters versus the English alphabet. For instance, if we want to go to Target, we don't look for the word 'target' we find the bullseye and pull in to shop. Or the written word 'man' looks nothing like a man, but when written in an eastern character, one can see a man. More and more our media flashes up logos and symbols and our culture is shifting toward the mystical...not Christian, just mystical...especially to postmoderns. It's a facinating read, really.
my point is though that we communicate to folks in ways that they understand, and there is a 'hidden' power in using that 'language' to help folks understand the mystical part of a life with Jesus. I do agree with you that we ought not use 'stuff' for stuff's sake; what I am saying is that we can look at ways that portions of our culture affect people and use that information to more effectively reach folks that need Jesus' healing.
Ad executives on Madison Ave. have poured millions of dollars into researching the different ways folks learn...I think we can utilize some of it in our churches. HOWEVER, as I stated before, numbers are sedcutive and folks in leadership have a tremendous responsibility to not pad their pews using things that connect with the deeper parts of people. The only thing worse than people with jaded minds are ones with jaded souls...
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