A Relevant Challenge
The web site reads: Have you given up on the church of your parents? Come to Grace Place and discover a faith that's relevant to your life!
The billboard reads: Deer Valley Community: We serve Him by serving You!
and Jesus said, Go ye therefore unto all the world and be... relevant?
No not quite, but Jesus was very relevant. How much then shall we be?
We now live in a culture where the individual reigns supreme, each to his own, each living by the dictates of her own conscience. The individual has risen, and would we really want it any other way? I like living in a world where one person can change things. I love the challenge that my Creator places on me each and every day to live up to my soul's Holy Spirit empowered potential. And I want to tell others about this God that loves them individually.
But the pressure's on for those of us that do feel compelled to bring individuals to the Son of God. Does Hell shake the soul of the woman with the ipod in her ears? Increasingly not. Do teary eyed descriptions of Jesus' sufferings?... less so, it seems, every day.
What does unlock the heart of the individual, of millions of individuals, that have built few bridges to the concepts of spirituality and the precepts of God? The answer of churches increasingly is this: ministries that are relevant to their life without God, things they need or like already, filled with people that are only always just like them.
I am, and always have been one of those that believes we must be relevant, not become relevant, but show that Christ already is relevant. Driving down the road, surfing the web, this Christian is begining to wonder how far is too far. One of the key tenants of the Christ life is the radical challenge He presents. He never feared the thousands that walked away trusting that those that did stay were truly those given to him by God. He was loving. He was relevant, but his was a relevant challenge to life as they knew it.
I'm just going to assume and hope that the church "that serves you!" is serving up a relevant, loving, joyful... challenge.
Take Care and let me know if you agree or disagree!
Aaron
The billboard reads: Deer Valley Community: We serve Him by serving You!
and Jesus said, Go ye therefore unto all the world and be... relevant?
No not quite, but Jesus was very relevant. How much then shall we be?
We now live in a culture where the individual reigns supreme, each to his own, each living by the dictates of her own conscience. The individual has risen, and would we really want it any other way? I like living in a world where one person can change things. I love the challenge that my Creator places on me each and every day to live up to my soul's Holy Spirit empowered potential. And I want to tell others about this God that loves them individually.
But the pressure's on for those of us that do feel compelled to bring individuals to the Son of God. Does Hell shake the soul of the woman with the ipod in her ears? Increasingly not. Do teary eyed descriptions of Jesus' sufferings?... less so, it seems, every day.
What does unlock the heart of the individual, of millions of individuals, that have built few bridges to the concepts of spirituality and the precepts of God? The answer of churches increasingly is this: ministries that are relevant to their life without God, things they need or like already, filled with people that are only always just like them.
I am, and always have been one of those that believes we must be relevant, not become relevant, but show that Christ already is relevant. Driving down the road, surfing the web, this Christian is begining to wonder how far is too far. One of the key tenants of the Christ life is the radical challenge He presents. He never feared the thousands that walked away trusting that those that did stay were truly those given to him by God. He was loving. He was relevant, but his was a relevant challenge to life as they knew it.
I'm just going to assume and hope that the church "that serves you!" is serving up a relevant, loving, joyful... challenge.
Take Care and let me know if you agree or disagree!
Aaron
posted by Aaron McMillan at 8:33 AM
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