The word relevance has been used and abused a lot lately in church circles. I think it originally started with the meaning of trying to reach people where they are. You know trying to break out of the church bubble we sometimes live in and talk real English to people and relate to the world as whole where they are at.
Sounds good to me, after all Jesus told stories that his audience could grasp and understand, right. But from my viewpoint the idea of relevance has warped a bit. It has come to mean “cool”, whatever that means.
Let me illustrate, does a person have to wear clothes form a certain store to be relevant? Should they have a my space page? Maybe a goatee or some stubble? How often should they frequent Starbucks? Is an SUV a must of perhaps a hybrid? What kind of shoes must a really relevant person where. Let’s no forget the attractive quotient. Unattractive people may not be relevant! How about your tech IQ? Certainly in order to be relevant you must have and iphone or at least an ipod!!
Now I am not slamming on these things, but does any of this really make you relevant? Would they be things that Jesus spent time worrying about. It smells like image management to me, which has a very Boomer feel to it. Actually it smells like high school and I am “so not there!”
So for me I am now using the term interesting. We should seek to be something that people find to be interesting. Our talks, our presentations, our writings and services, our outreaches and our methods should make people think, react, understand and turn on their light bulbs. Boring is not godly! We also have to change and evolve to be interesting. The same old same old is not interesting.
Can we please move beyond the adolescent need to fit in and have the most friends on buddies list? Well I gotta go my woman text messaged me to pick her up white chocolate frappucino grande and my itunes download is finished anyhow!
Sounds good to me, after all Jesus told stories that his audience could grasp and understand, right. But from my viewpoint the idea of relevance has warped a bit. It has come to mean “cool”, whatever that means.
Let me illustrate, does a person have to wear clothes form a certain store to be relevant? Should they have a my space page? Maybe a goatee or some stubble? How often should they frequent Starbucks? Is an SUV a must of perhaps a hybrid? What kind of shoes must a really relevant person where. Let’s no forget the attractive quotient. Unattractive people may not be relevant! How about your tech IQ? Certainly in order to be relevant you must have and iphone or at least an ipod!!
Now I am not slamming on these things, but does any of this really make you relevant? Would they be things that Jesus spent time worrying about. It smells like image management to me, which has a very Boomer feel to it. Actually it smells like high school and I am “so not there!”
So for me I am now using the term interesting. We should seek to be something that people find to be interesting. Our talks, our presentations, our writings and services, our outreaches and our methods should make people think, react, understand and turn on their light bulbs. Boring is not godly! We also have to change and evolve to be interesting. The same old same old is not interesting.
Can we please move beyond the adolescent need to fit in and have the most friends on buddies list? Well I gotta go my woman text messaged me to pick her up white chocolate frappucino grande and my itunes download is finished anyhow!
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