What's wrong with being relevant?

[petrol]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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?

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

[A.W. Bowman]

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.

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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.

[A.W. Bowman]

Originally Posted by petrol

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

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

[El Predicador]

Originally Posted by freeatlast

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

Dear Brother,

1. I fear nothing except God.

2. I enjoy PRIVATE time with my wife every chance I get.

3. Exposing young teens to a sign on a major highway with the word SEX in six foot letters and having two pair of bare feet coming out from the blankets is not wholesome.

4. I wouldn't want the slogan PURE SEX to be associated with my CHURCH and prominently display on its signage.

5. It is marketing sensationalism, not sharing the gospel.

6. There are other more appropriate venues to approach the subject.

[MrMasterMind]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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.

BUMP

[James Griffin]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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?

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.

[jaxfam6]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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

something like that yes.

[jaxfam6]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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

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.

[MrMasterMind]

Originally Posted by jaxfam6

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.

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?

[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by MrMasterMind

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?

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

The roots of it-- tradition.