Bobby Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana, in a recent Q&A session featured in Time Magazine was asked what changes were needed in order for the GOP (rejected by voters in Nov. 09) to become relevant again. He responded, “Republicans need to worry less about fixing the party and more about what we can do to fix our country.” Good answer and great advice for churches (and organized religion in general) today.
We’ve gone the Joel Osteen route – basically the spiritualized version of “Think and Grow Rich” -- God wants you to be healthy and wealthy and if you are not, you just don’t know God wants you to be healthy and wealthy.
We’ve gone the Mega-church route – making the church experience as hip and impersonal as a rock concert, shared with thousands of strangers, repeated twice on Saturday night and four times on Sunday – praise, cry, pay, repeat…
It is a far cry from 12 Apostles going door-to-door, taking the message of personal salvation to synagogues, the steps of pagan temples and the streets of the market place. What connection does a health and wealth message have to the gospel? Does experiencing pack-mentality conversion make it more real? Will a Vegas-style light show set to a contemporary Christian rock beat move you to actually change your sinful ways? None. Nope. Seriously doubt it.
But does any of this make church more RELEVANT in society today? I don’t think so. Does it make the gospel more relevant? Not possible. It always has been and always will be relevant. The good news that Jesus died for your sins, creating a way out of whatever issue you face, no less relevant to the world today than it was in 30 AD.
Church and Christians, who worry (as I do) about dwindling attendance and the aging attendees, don’t need to focus on making church or Christianity more relevant. We need to do one thing – STOP trying to fix church and go back to teaching how to fix sin. Two sentences just about cover it: Jesus died for your past sins. Now, go and “sin no more.”
Smooth words, great music, and quick services aren’t cutting it. Church attendance is down in literally every Christian denomination.
Fix people -- fix broken, sinful, hurting, lost, hungry, angry, suffering people -- and church will fix itself. Greed. Selfishness. Hate. Pride. All the sins that plagued mankind when Jesus walked the earth in human form, are still causing our suffering today. I challenge you to find one national problem that cannot be boiled down to one of these, running rampant and unchecked.
Maybe how you reach people is different – blog, Twitter or Facebook the message, send out a podcast, post a YouTube video – but the message is the same one that Jesus and all the prophets before and all the Apostles after, brought: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden (carry heavy burdens) and I will give you rest.”
How can THAT be any LESS relevant in our society today?
With Love, Nancy
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