Connecting in Context

rel-e-vant
Pronunciation: 're-l&-v&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Medieval Latin relevant-, relevans, from Latin, present participle of relevare to raise up -- more at RELIEVE
1 a : having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand b : affording evidence tending to prove or disprove the matter at issue or under discussion c : having social relevance

rel-e-vance
Pronunciation: 're-l&-v&n(t)s
Function: noun
1 a : relation to the matter at hand b : practical and especially social applicability : PERTINENCE
2 : the ability to retrieve material that satisfies the needs of the user

What do we mean when we say we are relevant? Does it mean that we have social relevance? Social practicality and social applicability?

I would love to think that when the church is trying to be relevant, we are using the second definition of relevance. We are trying to retrieve material from a culture so that we can satisfy the needs of that culture. Understanding the post-modern culture around us so that we can effectively speak to that culture, and satisfy their basic needs.

The gospel is always relevant but the gospel will not be made relevant. It always has social practicality and applicability but it won't be made to fit into existing culture. It's goal is to change culture. It was, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks, foolishness. I quote 1 Corintians 1:17-31 beacuse it is so...well, relevant to the discussion.

1 Corinthians 1:17-31 (The Message)
God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center - Christ on the Cross - be trivialized into mere words.

The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.

It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?

Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb - preaching, of all things! - to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom,, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle - and Greeks pass it off as absurd.

But to us who are personally called by God himself - both Jews and Greeks - Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.

Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"?

That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.

Everything that we have - right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start - comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

We can’t make the gospel relevant to culture because it's counter-culture. The culture in Jesus’ day didn’t get it; they killed the messenger. The culture in Paul’s day didn’t get it; they killed the messenger. The gospel will not change, it will not move, it is truth that cannot be altered. There are movements today trying to make the gospel and the Bible relevant to culture and it's landing us in a moral morass. They are changing the gospel, changing the message, making it more palatable to a culture at large, more...relevant.

I suppose, if we don't alter the message, we can make the delivery relevant to the culture, we can speak their language.

But how to speak in such a broad language? How do I speak to punk rockers, goths, and college Republicans in the same language?

If I were the bandwagon type, I would look at the white spot on my otherwise tan arm and remember the day I removed the WWJD bracelet in favor of a live4EVER bracelet. But I’m not so I just seriously ask, what would Jesus do?

I don’t think He had such a diverse culture to speak to, but regardless, His core message was the same to Nicodemus, Zaccheus, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman, the Roman centurion, and the thief on the cross. There is a heart longing for a relationship with God that only He can fulfill.

The question becomes, how does the goth express the gaping hole in their soul differently than the punk. And how do I connect with them? Rather, how do I open a door for the Spirit within me to speak to the hole inside them?

Connecting. Really connecting. Or REAL-ly connecting. In their context, not ours. And I think that they can be in our context when God speaks to them in theirs. We dont have to emmulate their context to speak in their context. Connect in context. I like that. This is starting to resonate. If we connect with them in their context, then we can send them back into their context to make more connections.

Is the answer relevance? I don’t know. I don't think it is in it's current form. I feel that relevance is walking a relative fence. I know that I don’t want to be a part of another “movement” that will be passe tomorrow. I want to change daily. Upwardly. Permanently. I don’t have the answers. All I have is questions. And lots of them.

But I’m, starting to think, that just possibly, the answer is prayer.

Fervent prayer.

Not evangelical whispers or charismatic shouts but genuine conversation with God that asks him to spare those that we can’t understand. Not everyday prayers, but all-day prayers. 24-7 prayer.

If we will, they will.

posted by Renovo Creative @ 4:08 PM