What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Lately many Oneness organizations have been speaking out vehemently against the "relevant" movement.

What is wrong with being relevant?

When did that become a bad thing?

What is to be gained by continuing to present the gospel in a manner that the "unsaved" consider to be irrelevant?

Was Jesus' message relevant?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

What does it mean to be relevant? (To you, I mean....)

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

The opposite of irrelevant.

:friend

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Oh...that is way too vague. :)

The Gospel is always relevant. However, people will never understand their need for it unless you find a way to interact with them. When we separate ourselves from the world to the extent that we no longer interact with unbelievers on a regular basis we simply remove our opportunities for evangelism.

To ME, what is meant by being "relevant" is really just, "I think we should hang out with people who need God."

The fear is, though, that fraternization will produce fellowship in such a way that the Christian becomes less so and the unbeliever sees nothing different to desire. Tricky little problem, because evil communications DO corrupt good manners. At some point, some corruption may be necessary to allow the church to do what it was meant to do.

In other words: We need to get our hands dirty.

That's what I think it means to be relevant. Meet needs. Like Jesus did. Without participating in the behaviors and lifestyles that destroy people--or offering tacit approval of the same. And then the Gospel can be shared in a way that is truly meaningful.

Perhaps the church should challenge its constituents to "Invite a sinner for dinner." (a non-relative, perhaps, to make it a little more difficult?) :) (Instead of inviting them to church.)

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Some good points, if the charge to the church is go forth and disciple nations, how can that be done without getting hands a little soiled dealing with individuals?

I am afraid we have some leaders whose faith is so weak as to believe interaction with the unchurched will somehow leave the "saints" themselves less than holy.

Perhaps is it time for new leaders or if necessary new fellowships to step forward.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

This is so sad !! My savior is my savior, he has power to keep me.

Sevearl years ago, my pastor told me, we would do good to "hold our own". He could not see this as a church that was going to grow.

That is what an IR relavant gospel will get you. Stagnation.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

More excellent points.

I missed the verse that said "Hold the fort I am coming"

But Matt 16:18 is where it says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

It has always been vogue to find the latest "sin" and be among the first to decry its influence. With the popularity of buzz words and way cool jargon in the publishing industry we have a seemingly endless supply of "errors" that need to be denounced before the rapture.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

True, always has been, always will be.

However, I am more than a a little surprised to find such a complete condemnation and castigation of certain ministers for being "relevant"

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

We have a church service for the uner 30 crowd.

It is cafe style setting. Coffee and cinamon rolls etc.

Worship is conducted by two young men with acoustic guitars.

We call it, The Journey.....God help us ;-)

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

I think that being relevant is the key to seeing the world change.
For the most part, according to my understanding when a missionary goes into a new country they are taught the ways of the people. They must interact with the natives in order to influence them (of course they generally forego things like human sacrifice:))... But when it comes to the way that they eat, what they eat, and how they interact, if the missionaries do not adapt, they will not see results.
I find this is true in my work with teenagers. If I have no idea what they are talking about, they will not listen as closely to me, they will think I don't have a "clue". So I learn what they are "into" and I am able to counteract, or encourage it.
I don't have to listen to Katy Perry to know what she stands for, a quick internet search of reading her lyrics, and a background read into her history tells me what I need to know when talking to my students who defend her.


Just a thought

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

What have they been saying?

BTW, cool name and avatar! Does that make you relevant? :spit

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Casting Crowns second verse of "What this world needs" song

What this world needs
Is for us to care more about the inside than the outside
Have we become so blind that we can't see
God's gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt
What this world needs
Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance
Blending in so well that people can't see the difference
And it's the difference that sets the world free


I agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx2nKJNGzwA

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

I am glad for balanced teaching. Our pastor speaks of us staying relevent and being relevent to the world. We need to find as many ways as possible to make contact and impact lives.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

My dear friends -

It is not how one looks, speaks or even how we act that will make us relevant to anyone "in the world". As pointed out earlier, it will be how we engage these individuals - meeting them where "they are at" and ministering to their needs - right now..

What will attract the attention of those around us - to want to examine us closer - is not our "holy dress", but the fruit of the Spirit. What will attract folks is not our ability to recite Oneness doctrine or even Acts 2:38, it will be the power of our testimony and the witness of our transformed lives.

Or,

We can stay out of the sinners house, like Jesus did. We can stay away from those believe in the same God, but not as we do, just like Peter did. We can keep ourselves separated from those who do not believe in our God at all, like Paul did. We can keep adding to our list of religious laws, like Apostles did. Yes, let's pray that God will send those sinners into the "House of God", so we will not have to go out to the highways and byways and compel anyone to come in.

Oops! Perhaps we need to make some minor adjustments (corrections) to the above statements.

Why would anyone want what we have, when we look and act like we are in worse shape than they are? We love to use David as an example of expressing our joy before the Lord and to justify our worship behavior in church. Well, friends and neighbors, David did not do a wild dance in church (Temple) - he did it in public and in front of the ladies! Now, where are our public expressions of joy before the Lord? Where are our smiles and warm greetings? Where are our helping hands and expressions of compassion? Where are our ministries to the lost and dieing with food, shelter, clothings, medical support, transportation, etc. and yes, don't forget fellowship and the sharing of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven?

It was for these folks that Jesus died. Can we not put up with a little stink of cigarette smoke, stale liquor, and their lousy music? After all, "such were some of you."

Ouch! Make that, "such were some of us!"

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

You "broke the code". Teach it!

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

I am very thankful for the balanced and wise teachings of my pastor. He is truly a God send to us. He is a man and admits he has faults and failures.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Would that be anything like becoming all things to all men so that by all means some might be saved?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Are you suggesting that folk can be saved outside the four walls of a traditional local church building!?! Sounds pretty radical to me.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

LOLOL No! I would never, ever suggest such a thing. I might, however, state the idea as a firm fact!. :heart

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and I know I'll get slaughtered for it...

But this brother's statement holds some degree of truth to it. And I often wonder if it's not because our churches and ministries have put so much emphasis on external, outward holiness without the greater emphasis on the internal holiness and spiritual maturity, that they're afraid that peoples' relationship with God is not strong enough to keep them from being influenced by "the world." Does that make sense?

I've been in this for 24 of my 42 years. And until the last couple years I can honestly (sadly) say that I didn't have much of a relationship with God. It's because my focus was on doing and not doing, going and not going - to the point where I held all the standards, didn't go to movies, went to church four times a week, but didn't know God and wasn't really even led in that direction. I had plenty of times of emotional highs and moves of the Spirit, I loved to worship enthusiastically. Anyone seeing me would have thought I had it all together and was as holy as a saint could be - just one step below the ministry. But there was no relationship. Once the music faded and the preaching was finished and I went back to life, it was just emptiness.

If we're going to believe in the standards, that's perfectly fine if that's your conviction. But there needs to be a balance whereby people understand that, even though you are "doing all the right things the right way," you still need to grow in your relationship with God through PERSONAL interaction with Him and study of His Word. There are WAY TOO MANY people depending on their pastors to do all the studying and all the praying, IMO. And that's a tragedy.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Awesome post... as always! We spend too much time and money building up our own kingdoms that we don't have anything left for building up God's kingdom! God's kingdom does not have elaborate multi-million dollar worship centers or learning campuses. God's kingdom is in you and me! We should be spending more money on outreach than we do on our building rent/mortgage! Instead of finding ways to make our "churches" comfortable and luxurious, we should be finding ways to give more to those who need it, like the single mother who had her heat shut off because she couldn't pay the bill, or the homeless family living in their car because their home was foreclosed and their credit is so bad they can't get an apartment.

IMO, seven of the most beautiful words in the Bible are "And such were some of you, but!" The problem is that we so often forget about the BUT! Everyone saved by grace has a BUT! We pat ourselves on the back for how victorious we are, glorying in our Apostolic heritage and how many generations our family has been "in the truth", and forget those who are waiting for us to take the victory back to them.

Let's face it! If you're going to reach into the fire, you'll probably get burned a little. Should that prevent us from reaching, though?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

I will be speaking as one who started witnessing on the streets of Dayton Ohio as part of the Jesus Movement back in 1975. This has been a strong part of my Christian walk since the beginning. We witnessed in Airports, Malls and downtown. We witnessed to hookers, freaks, gays, drunks, and whoever.

We would go to the deep woods at midnight looking for the lost. Taking guitars and praising the Lord to draw out those searching for purpose in life who congregated there in the darkness in late hours of the night. We had a confrontation with a coven of witches there one night and got to preach to them. They came up behind where we were praising the Lord cursing and throwing some kind of powder on us.

When we began to pray in the Spirit they backed off into the woods. One of our people who had himself came out of witchcraft preached to them! When we left the woods they followed along from behind the trees and brush cursing as we sang "He Aint Never Done Me Nothin But Good".

All through the years relevance has been important to me. Now at 55 years old and living in Kentucky this is no less important. The Lord has blessed to be able to get out on the main intersections here and preach the gospel and be seen or heard by thousands.

I say all this to demonstrate willingness to get my hands dirty and not sit back and "hold the fort".

I have never went along with some of the outward standards of the Oneness Churches. Not particularly because I would not be willing to submit for my own sake for unity to unscriptural Church standards but early on I saw it was a hinderance to the Sinner who had enough true sin to come out of without adding to their burden.

It is of great priority that we live the commands of Jesus Christ. The world on one hand hates the hypocrite. They despise them for talking to them of Christ. On the other hand they love the hypocrite because they can point to them as an example of a Christian! They can then feel justified that Christians live pretty much like they do.

Its risky buisness to be relevant. Jesus said for us to be perfect and complete in his will. When we go forth into the world to preach the good news the world wants to see an example of Christ! Enough of the bumper sticker religon of "Im not perfect just forgiven".

The youth will respond better to the challenge of true discipleship with its hard hitting emphasis on commitment to Jesus Christ more than to the message that its about "unconditional love".

Another thing to consider is this. Do we want to be relevant to God and his kingdom or relevant to this present world? The most wonderful thing about being a Christian is having FAVOR with God! Knowing him personally by manifestation!

Any presentation on relevance should never suggest partaking of sin. Sin causes the Spirit of God to withdraw his favor. Scripture does command "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness". Our relationships with the lost cannot become "fellowship". Jesus was friendly toward the lost and were the disciples. But not to the point where the message is watered down! I have also seen many cases where the saint fellowshipped and got close to someone they were trying to win by being relevant and wound up backsliding!

I believe if we are spending time with Jesus and being transformed by his commandments and his Spirit we will be relevant to him. If we are relevant to him he will make US relevant to THEM.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Jesus was relevant ... his parables used items and aspects of life that was relevant to the crowd he sought to teach.

I have to think that had He come in 2009 he would not use fig trees, sheep and talents ... Anyone want to venture what he would have used in lieu of these things to KEEP IT REAL ... and bring a spiritual message through common place things and concepts

Of course we know he supped with the non-religous crowd very often ... of course with the intent of bringing the good news.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

With fear and loathing, lumping relevant with all forms of emerging, they create a strawman which must be destroyed at all costs.

Unable to articulate exactly what it is they fear, they vow to fight it, and purge it from their midst.

Content with the status quo, they do not realize what they fear is not a doctrine but the concept of change.

New pastors rising up willing to try new methodologies to promulgate an immutable gospel.

Organizational leaders, on state level as well as national so afraid of things like home churches, marketplace evangelism, the empowerment of the pew, that they condemn all as heresy rather than even contemplate dialogue.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Good post ...

And yet they speak of the ever-so-evasive REVIVAL ... been talking about it for years.

Now their existing structures are threatened and rather than dialogue ...they seek to disfellowship.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Bull! :D

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

And such were some of you but...

Paul addressing THE CHURCH at Corinth: some of you were adulterers, fornicators, drunkards, sodomites, homosexuals, liars and thieves! In today's terms would probably have to add crackheads, pimps and hos.

Sounds like the first generation was pretty messed up, kind of like society today.

Wonder how they were reached without full time paid pastors, robed choirs, and 40 minute Sunday morning sermons in air conditioned sanctuaries?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Good grief!

Is this relevant enough for you?

Pure Sex series.

Champion Life Centre is the new name for Jabo Green's Spring Tabernacle

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...0209091253.jpg

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Pure Sex, undefiled and holy ??? Is that what scares you El Predictor?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

There is nothing wrong with being relevant. Some people get all up in arms about it cause it challenges them to get out of the box they are comfortably in...and that creates a problem for them...they can no longer be comfortable that is their problem...(I'm not a big fan of Comfortable (c)hristians)....IMO

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Actually, it looks more like yet one more ploy in a long line of attempts to entice people into a church building for another lecture - not an attempt to engage the sinner as a person.

I think that being relevant requires being personally engaged with people, not producing another church program. For example, Relevant, Social significance: Having some bearing on or importance for real-world issues, present-day events, or the current state of society, or having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue, being pertinent, applicable, germane, related, appropriate, significant, important, etc.

Or, what we say and do can render us unconnected, disconnected, not related, isolated, irrelevant, beside the point, extraneous, not the issue, not pertinent, etc. to the world and the people who are trying to survive living in it. Not knowing this church, the congregation or its pastor. While I cannot prejudge the message/program that will be presented, the message on the sign (words and suggestive illustration) would be enough to keep me from those doors.

-----------------------------

So, at this point I went to the web site of the championlifecentre.org and clicked on the “Watch Current Message” link. Personally I would not hold this series as a “public” teaching, but as a church family teaching? I commend this pastor for his willingness to confront reality and a serious problem that runs through even our oneness families, churches, organizations and its leadership.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

:foottap






You mean I was not called to be an armchair Christian?
:heart

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

BUMP

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Wow ironically enough that was the exact message and verses that Pastor Willis preached last Sunday.

It particularly resonates there since the vast majority are first generation Christian. 17 or so of the 20 teens who attend are the only ones in their household who go to church. Many walk from the apartments which surround the church and are actively discouraged from attending by their parents.

The youth leader through public testimony gives thanks that a few years ago he was living in his car and dealing drugs.

The assistant pastor was saved while in prison serving two felonies and was a captain in a prison gang.

I am sure many of my conservative friends would find the praise and worship to be too "worldly, charismatic, relevant, or emerging" (since they seem to use the terms interchangeably) for their taste.

Too be honest, its a little bit loud and "modern" for my personal taste as well. LOL. BUT we are seeing lives changed, souls buried in His Name, filled with the Holy Ghost, AND mentored into spiritual maturity.

I am working with the staff to develop ways to assimilate new comers. Social events, small groups, house churches, Bible studies at work, Bible studies given BY the residents of nursing homes.

The bottom line we are seeing previously unchurched individuals saved and changed, instead of catering to the revolving herd of church hopping saints.

WHATEVER label some would apply, I am proud to be apart of it.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

something like that yes.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Our pastor asked one Sunday if we thought Jesus, if he was to come down in the flesh again, would be in church on Sunday. Then he answered his own question with a "NO". He came to save the lost not sit inside the four walls and play church. He would be out in the streets talking to people and meeting peoples needs.
Does this mean he feels that church services are irrelevent? No, they serve a purpose but we should not be all wrapped up in them and them alone. We need to be out among the people showing Jesus to them as well.

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

Personally I do not think Jesus would have trouble spending Sunday mornings in church, of course he might bring a whip on occasion. LOL

Your post does present an interesting paradigm though, why is Sunday morning the only time many believe the lost can be saved?

Re: What's wrong with being relevant?
 

It's the time that many set aside to open themselves up to that kind of change.

The roots of it-- tradition.