So I agreed to join in a book study with a few friends of mine (Kyle, Nate and Mike) and I am already three days behind!! We are reading the book, “Pop Goes The Church: Should the Church Engage Pop Culture” by Tim Stevens. Our plan is to read a section, then post our thoughts and insights on our own blogs.
Chapter one hits on a question that has always haunted me. It is a question we have talked about in staff meetings, leadership meetings and I have posed to our church family; "If Pathway Church were to suddenly disappear, would anyone notice, and if they did, would they even care?" It is a question about how much a church impacts the community.
Sometimes I wonder if our generation of church leaders has crossed a line. It seems that we are more concerned with getting people into our particular churches, than we are to introducing them to Jesus. We put huge amounts of time and energy into creating bigger and better "shows." Our goal is to become that next church to create an impressive splash in the community and gets designated with the all important label of being "cool." We spend hours in staff meetings talking about how to perfect the circus we like to call our Sunday morning worship, all in an attempt to be relevant. Sometimes I have to ask the question, "Relevant to what? Relevant to whom?"
It seems to me that the only people who care about being in a cool church are the Christians who have grown bored with their own faith and feel they need something more. Maybe that's easy for me to say, since I have spent the past several years surrounded by some pretty phenomenal musicians and a worship leader who is one of my favorite people in all the world. But in all the years I have been in ministry, I can't think of too many people who said they were so impressed with the band that they wanted to give their life to Jesus. I can't think of a single person who said they were so blown away by the way the lights faded and the video segued into the sermon that they were ready to give up drugs and stop cheating on their spouse.
It always seems to boil down to people. Somebody took the time to have a conversation with me. Somebody personally reached into my world and listened to me as if I were the only person who mattered. Somebody helped pick me up when I was down. Somebody loved me when I was unlovable. That is the kind of stuff that impacts a community!
It seems that in all the church's attempts to look authentic, we have lost our authenticity. Maybe the best way for a church to be culturally relevant, is for each person of faith to take the time to reach into the life of someone they rub shoulders with and simply show them the unconditional love of Christ. If they need cool music, they could always head down to Blues on Grand.
