RELEVANT

“Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making rock and roll worse?” (Hank Hill)

In undoubtedly my favorite King of the Hill episode, Bobby Hill joins a youth group after his parents are concerned about recent bad behavior. To Bobby’s surprise, the kids in the youth group are rock and roll skaters with a tattooed pastor (Pastor K) as their leader. Hank and Peggy are glad that Bobby is involved in a church, but Hank begins to be concerned about Bobby’s cool slant on Christianity. It appears throughout the entire episode that Hank is just annoyed by the hyper-hip Christianity that Bobby is beginning to display. For example, Bobby offers to pray for dinner and ends his prayer with “Peace out”. Hank is conservative and traditional and Bobby sees his dad’s disapproval of his behavior as not understanding how God can be culturally relevant. At a Christian music-fest Hank has had enough of the culturally relevant form of Christianity that Bobby is displaying and tries to take him home. Bobby protests and Pastor K comes to Bobby’s defense. That is when Hank drops the awesome quote above about Pastor K’s version of Christianity. Hank takes Booby home with Bobby indignant. Hank pulls down a box of Bobby’s stuff from the closet and starts showing the items inside to Bobby. Each piece was something that Bobby was into at some point that he had since not cared about. Hank (with more wisdom than one would expect from the creators of Beavis and Butthead) tells Bobby that his concern isn’t about being involved in a cool youth group, but that Bobby appears to just be into the culture of it and not Christ and that he fears that his faith would end up in the box with all the other things Bobby has grown past or given up on.

Christian culture has two forms of relevant. The first is Christian subculture relevant. Christian subculture relevant refers to those things that exist within every culture that help define what the culture is. A blog I follow comments on these issues and has been able to connect with many Christians and non-Christians alike who have felt that the disingenuous Christian culture promoted artificialities, judgmental attitudes, and a disconnect from society. Hr blog is Stuff Christian Culture Likes at http://blog.beliefnet.com/stuffchristianculturelikes/. Both forms of relevancy are often, but not always, motivated by what happens when any group forms. Runners have a certain culture, Trekkies have a culture, and Christians have a culture. Traits about groups evolve as does lingo and subtle attitudes and behaviors. The result in Christian subculture is much more dangerous and often believed by those who participate to be equivalent to truth, but is also very often innocent and trivial. In fact, now that I have been out of the church for as long as I have been, I actually miss some of the culture of the church. This form of cultural relevancy is problematic, but the other form of relevancy, the one that birthed the Christian sub-culture form, is much more theologically motivated.

The second form of relevancy is the attempt to connect with modern society. Not connect with modern people, but modern society. Obviously society is prolific and therefore what is relevant is prolific, but the goal is to connect with society. This is a problem. People are more than society. As industrialization came to a close and people were able to shape their identity with layers of external ingredients it was easy to conclude that people were the sum or even the individual ingredients of their identity. The human condition was nicely compartmentalized within this created identity. Genuine fears, struggles, sin, and hurt was seen not in context of who the person is in the world in which they live, but in context of the world in which they live alone. The advent of relevant ministry gave people the illusion that by connecting to people’s society that they were connecting to people. There is some legitimacy to this of course. But what evolved were messages that exploited the culture for institutional gain. So what we have now is not a relevancy that connects with people, but one that exploits people. Nothing meaningful is being attached to people’s lives, nothing is connecting to a greater picture, and nothing real is happening. Relationships in the institutionalized church are often superficial, service is often isolated, and discipleship is often nothing more than self help, cheap grace, and/ or dogma. Relevancy in the institutionalized church has weakened the mission of the church to a form of consumerism than pits one church against another. Relevancy equates discipleship and ministry to personal and social contentment. It doesn’t call people into greater intimacy with Christ or others. It doesn’t reveal the “move” of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t connect with what relevancy should connect with, how Christ is actively working in individuals and in the Kingdom. Far too many Christians have replaced holiness with practicality. The message of relevancy in scripture is vastly different than what is so often preached today.

John 4:9-11

9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." 11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

This is the message of relevancy. No power point presentations or coffee shops needed. Jesus didn’t give her three easy steps to take to incorporate this into her daily life. He didn’t set up a “Fan of Living Water” page on Facebook to remind her to rely on Jesus. He simply offered her Him. He saw her need and graphically and narratively met her need. It may sound that I don’t like technology, coffee shops, and other modern conveniences and opportunities. That is not the case at all. I simply believe that these are all resources that should improve our quality of life and can be used as resources for sharing Christ. What these things often do, however, is complicate our lives and become a substitute for Christ. Relevancy in the Kingdom is not the same thing as relevancy in the world. Relevancy can be an excellent resource and need to be incorporated into ministry and discipleship, but we can’t simply throw them on top of the old church model and think that we have somehow become relevant. We must hold true to the real relevancy of intimacy and purpose with Christ.