by Mark Dowds
www.freshresource.com

-- After a long season of working in church I had to step back and ask the question about cultural relevance. In almost every forum and gathering of trendy people and progressive church leaders there is a heavy focus on the forms of worship and internal organizational expression. Many of our forms are cooler that they have ever been but we must still ask the question, \"is this culturally relevance at its finest?\" If it is, why are the unchurched not interested? I think one of the big shifts coming our way is learning the ability to be relevant in society instead of in the church meetings. It is an unfortunate reality that most groovy meetings are still filled with people who cannot relate outside of the church community. There is still something to shake off that has us focused on the gatherings instead of giving our attention to assisting people to be relevant.

It is time we started to educate people on how to be relevant instead of planning and wasting much energy on making our seasonal events bigger and better. We need to remember that unchurched people are not attracted to our coolness; they are attracted to God, to deep spirituality. People who do not know God will rarely travel for a trendy meeting but they will travel for the advice of a sage. Have we lost the genuine attractiveness of the Good news by being busy and becoming noisy when most seek solitude and an inner peace? It is a question that needs a well thought answer. We need to learn how to help spiritually hungry people experience genuine Christian truth. Basically, it would be a major error on the church\'s part to continue its pursuit of programs and methodological prowess that seems to work, when the world desperately seeks for God.

If we want to realistically evaluate our cultural relevance we need to analyze our influence in the culture instead its influence on us. Are we developing writers for the newspaper and for Hollywood? Are we training dancers to dance appropriately in clubs? Are we building houses for the homeless and fighting for the rights of orphans? Are we training young people to lead businesses that can re-shape industries? Are we encouraging athletes to run like and enjoy God on a Sunday? Do we talk a lot or are we integrated into society as a healthy source of life and creativity that reaches beyond the small pool of Christianity? --

Comment?