Cultural Relevance
First, let me affirm that I believe that the church should be relevant to the culture it is seeking to serve. Cultural relevance is a value of the church I serve. It is also a personal value. Frankly, I believe it is sin for a church not to seek to be relevant to its culture.
The church is a missionary society. As the Body of Christ, we are called to carryout the mission of bringing redemption to a broken world. Jesus began this work in his own body. With the ascension of His body to heaven, He has tasked the church to be His body on earth and to continue the work that He has begun.
Some churches seem bent on cultural irrelevance and truly believe that this is the more spiritual option. They claim that they are not being seduced by worldliness and modern inventions, but are being faithful to the Word alone. However, they have simply canonized the cultural norms of either the Puritan era or the 1950’s. They have simply clung to an ancient worldly culture rather than adapting to a modern worldly culture. Their utopian dream is 16th Century
The dangers of cultural irrelevance are obvious. Many churches today are headed toward (or are already at) total irrelevancy. They are having no more impact on their culture than the Amish. They seem to be the religious equivalent of the
Look at what Jesus did to bring salvation to us. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Jesus did come into our context, our world. He adopted the language, style of dress, and cultural norms of the people with whom He lived. He spoke in their common language, used common illustrations, and dressed in the common dress. Jesus did not have to “translate” what he did for everyone who was around Him. The only times that Jesus was obscure was when He didn’t want some people to understand (see the parables).
In some churches, it seems that they are intentionally obfuscating the truth by hiding it behind traditions that no common person could ever understand, musical forms that are foreign to the people of their communities. They cling to practices that they enjoy without giving a thought as to whether or not the people they are called to reach can comprehend it. They are more committed to doing what they want to do then they are to being accessible to lost people. That clearly is not the ministry model of Jesus.
The danger of cultural relevance
As if that wasn’t enough of a rant, here is my real issue for today. A few years ago, Os Guinness wrote a book on the modern church growth movement entitled, Dining with the Devil. It comes from the expression, “If you are going to dine with the Devil, then you must use a very long spoon”. I wonder if our spoon has been long enough.
In a nutshell, here is the problem, in our desire to be culturally relevant and reach lost people, we have worked hard to grab their attention and speak with relevance. Much of the results of this have been good. We have seen many people come to church and eventually to Christ that never would have gone to church before. The truth of the Bible has not been veiled behind unintelligible liturgies. Lives truly have been changed by the gospel.
However, churches have not just grown by attracting non-Christians, but by attracting Christians. People now crave relevance more and more. In reality, they want a church that entertains them and puts on a good show. We have created a church that values entertainment over doctrine. I heard a pastor of one of the largest churches in my denomination (a true megachurch) say, "If we changed our theology, a few people might leave. If we changed our music, half the church would be gone by next Sunday".
I agree that church should not be boring. God isn’t boring. It is the equivalent of a modern miracle how we preachers can talk about our amazing God in such a way that puts people to sleep. However, the danger is, when you build your church on having a good “show”, you now have created an appetite for entertainment that constantly needs to be fed.
While the contemporary church has been far more successful in reaching lost people than the traditional church (look at the PCA’s statistics on those joining by profession of faith and this is obvious), it also has grown by attracting people who are bored with their old church. If people come to you because you are more exciting than their old church, then they will leave when they find another church that is more exciting than yours.
This has created a consumer mindset in church members. The members of the church no longer see themselves as owners/ministers, but as consumers. Just as they will leave Publix to shop at Wal Mart's Neighborhood Market, they will leave one church for another if it provides a better show or better services for their family. (For more on this, see http://www.faithworks.com/archives/church_hopping.htm)
We are seeing this all over the country. I can cite a number of examples in my own denomination where a church was once the hot church in its community, but now is experiencing decline because some other church has come that puts on a better production. The drive for cultural relevance has resulted in consumerism. Consumerism will eventually bite the church. It is a beast that cannot be contained.
What now?
So, now that we have seen the dangers of cultural relevance, do we return to cultural irrelevance? Of course not. That is unbiblical. We must continue to work to contextualize the gospel without compromising the gospel.
I have to admit, I don’t know what we do. I hear that Leadership Journal next month will be focusing on the issue. I hope they have some answers. I do know that part of the answer is that we must call people to radical discipleship. If people are living for the glory of God, living with a sense of mission, then they cannot be living as consumers as well. So, we need to challenge people to see that their calling in Christ is not merely to pursue their own comfort, but to pursue the glory of God and the good of others.
Will this solve the problem? It depends on what you see as the problem. It won’t solve the problem of the church having a revolving door. Most people will always be consumers. They are fully enculturated and, until the gospel takes root, they will not be disenculturated. However, it will solve the problem for some because some will get it. I think if we help people to see that part of the message of the gospel is “Take up your cross and follow me”, the Holy Spirit will empower many to do just that.
So, I am not optimistic about reversing the consumerism trend. However, I am extremely optimistic that, if we focus as much energy on calling people to radical discipleship as we do on being culturally relevant, that we will see a new generation of disciples who will joyfully answer Christ’s call to live for Christ and His mission.
posted by Mark Bates | 10:45 AM
10 Comments:
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Your point is well taken, and the same consumeristic trend can be seen in other areas of American life such as marriage, jobs, homes, etc. In order to maximize short-term gains, we jump around from place to place or person to person, but this means one's relationship with that person, place, or community can be nothing but superficial since depth requires time -- during which we experience the bad (suffering) as well as the good (joy).
I tend to think that "Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken" isn't heard much anymore, not because it's out-dated (Indelible Grace has great rendition set to new music on their second album), but because we have refused this radical discipleship you're talking about. We have preferred to keep one foot in the world and one in God's Kingdom, and we have chosen not to sacrifice our comfort or safety for the cause of Christ. Radical discipleship would demand this of us, methinks.
In your rant about cultural irrelevancy in Christian worship services, would you classify English-speaking but more formal and liturgical evangelical churches as irrelevant?
Some would classify our style of worship as irrelevant in favor of punkier or hip-hoppier sounds, for instance. Is it okay to have a variety of worship styles given the various "conflicting" subcultures that exist? If so, how should one decide which church to attend? Should it be the closest one that is tolerable and comprehensible or one that is farther away but more to one's tastes? Can one leave a church because they have become culturally irrelevant?
Matthew,
I don't think the formal/liturgical verses the informal/non-liturgical is the necessarily the dividing line between relevant and irrelevant(although that is what I keyed in on here). I believe that there are many formal/liturgical churches that are very relevant to their cultural setting. A number of years ago, I was the consultant for a church and had to address the issue of worship styles. I know that the people who hired me were convinced I would tell them to become "contemporary". However, I told them I thought that would be a mistake in their context. In fact, I think that the "traditional verses contemporary" worship war is a red herring. You can be very relevent or very irrelevent with either style.
There are a number of churches who have more traditional styles that are very missional and very culturally relevant--Park Cities Presbyterian in Dallas, Redeemer in New York (although some might not all it traditional). Then, there are a whole bunch of neo-liturgical churches springing up. They are liturgical because, in their context, they believe this makes them more missional.
I could (but won't) also cite some examples of churches that are "contemporary" and are not culturally relevant.
My point is that people (both those who like the "formal/traditional" and those who like the "contemporary") tend to base their worship services on what they prefer. They do not give a thought to their culture. They do not take the time to exegete their culture.
Still, as my original comments show, I do have a problem with people claiming that "high church" worship is more spiritual than contemporary. I think that sort of thinking reflects both an elitism and a non-missionary heart. They do not even think the topic of relevance is worthy of discussion. To put it bluntly, I think that is sin.
BTW, the problem is not just in the music of the worship, but also in the preaching. If you need a theological dictionary to follow the sermon, then you clearly are not following the example of Jesus or Paul. The Apostle Paul taught all his great theology to people with no theological background. So, we should be able to do the same. If you had to grow up in the church in order to understand the sermon, then it is a bad sermon.
The writers of Scripture were always very sensitive to their audiences. That is why, for example, Matthew quotes the OT quite liberally whereas Luke explains most of his OT references. Matthew is writing to Jews. Luke is writing to Gentiles. So, the gospel writers are showing cultural sensitivity even in the recording of the gospel.
What is interesting is today, there are people clinging to what might be called "baby boomer contemporary worship" that are unwilling to change.
My point is that worship should intentionally be intelligible. It should also intentionally be in a cultural form that the community can relate to. To say that one form of worship is superior to another form based on arbitrary cultural standards is wrong. You must exegete your community.
The more challenging question is, what do you do in a community with a variety of sub-cultures? Here again is where the "cultural relevance" has been both a blessing and a curse. I think it has led to the Balkanization of the church where you have a different style for every little group. That, to me, is a negative. Worship should be a unifyer, not a divider. If every group has its own distinct style, then how do you do unify the church? I really don't know the answer. But I don't like the fact that people are choosing churches in the same way they choose their radio stations. This is where cultural relevance has turned into consumerism.
No matter what you do, you will either intentionally or unintentionally design your service to include some and exclude others. For example, our worship service is in English. That automatically excludes people who do not speak English who live in our community. It even excludes those who speak English but whose heart language is something else. If we tried to do a service with cultural elements from all the various subcultures in our community, it would be such a hodge podge that no one would understand it.
It used to be in America, or at least the American suburbs and small towns, there was one culture. So, this wasn't a problem. Maybe someone who knows a lot more about the early church and the issues they faced in blending different cultures into one church can help us understand what do to here.
My general rule is that the church should be in the cultural form of most of the people in its community, unless it is specifically targeting another subculture. I also believe that Christians should give up their personal preferences for the sake of mission. As I told another church once, if Jesus can go to the cross for you, then you can sing to tunes you may not prefer. Give up your preferences for the sake of mission.
As far as leaving a church over this issue, that brings up a whole nother set of issues. I think people leave churches too easily over trivial matters. My initial reaction is, no. You only leave a church if a) you move out of the area, or b) you have serious doctrinal/ethical matters that cannot be resolved through the proper processes of the church. The church is family. You don't divorce your family unless it is pretty serious.
Thanks, Mark. I agree. It seems to me that some people dismiss the argument to be culturally relevant in worship because following it to its logical conclusions yields hard questions that no one really has satisfactory answers for. Such old-stylers see tradition as unifying today's church with the saints throughout the ages, and they see contemporary styles as conforming the church to the world. (At least, that's how I understand them.) And that's not even touching the debate over aesthetics -- which is more beautiful CCM or Bach?
Here's an interesting piece by John Frame that says many of the same things. A quote:
"[I]n our evangelistic methodology, indeed in our worship (for that too has an evangelistic element, [1 Cor.] 14:24f), our goal must not be to please ourselves, but to bend and stretch, to accept discomfort and the trauma of change, in order to speak the Christian Faith into the contemporary world."
Matthew,
Thanks for the link to the Frame article. That is fantastic. I wish I had written that. He said what I was trying to say. Besides the quote you posted, I loved this one as well:
"I fear that some churches seek to be mere museum pieces: historical artifacts where people can go to hear old-fashioned talk and experience older forms of church life; spiritual versions of Colonial Williamsburg. On the contrary, Christian worship is to be contemporary, because it must be intelligible (1 Cor. 14), and the church’s preaching must adapt (insofar as Scripture permits) to the language and habits of the target population (1 Cor. 9)."
There is only one reason to go to church and that is if one takes the God stuff seriously -- there is a God, he has placed certain responsibilities on humans which we have failed to live up to, a Redeemer was therefore necessary to save us from hell, etc. etc. etc.
Because if we don't believe that, then there is nothing positive the church does -- feeding the poor, building a community -- that can't be done just as well by secular means and there's no point to playing church.
I don't care (well, I do have a personal preference) if the music is high church or low church. I do care that God has been turned into another commodity, like soap or shampoo, and the big churches are the ones with the best marketing campaigns, not the ones that do the best job of calling people to do what God has commanded them to do. And I have visited megachurches that left me with the impression that I could equally as well have been in the Temple of Diana and only the Deity's name has been changed.
Anonymous, I am not sure I would put the dividing line between megachurches and non-megachurches. One of the reasons some churches remain small is that the congregation wants a church that simply meets its needs and is not concerned about reaching the lost world around it. They don't want to change their style of worship because they are comfortable with it. They don't want to use common language because they like the insider feeling of having their own code words. So, they will rail against the world outside, but they will not follow in the footsteps of Jesus and be incarnational--that is, take on the forms of the people around them in order to reach the people around them.
My point here is that I believe many megachurches are motivated by a desire to reach the lost. That is why they have big marketing campaigns. That is not a bad thing.
However, both the big churches and the small churches, the traditional and the contemporary, have to be careful that they are not simply catering to the consumer's taste. Some churches are in danger of catering to the tastes of churched people who do not want to change. Some churches are in danger of catering to the latest fashion trends. There are dangers on all sides. That is one (among many) reasons we should pray for our elders and leaders as they seek to keep the church mission focused in a consumeristic society.
Man, I realize this posting is several months old, but I just ran across it, and wanted to give a thought.
I enjoyed the article and agree with the concept of cultural relevance, however I would diverge from your thoughts on the relevance being part and parcel with Style or Taste.
Most churches that are irrelevant today are irrelevant because they do not address the issue of today, moreso I would say than their style of music or dress.
In other words, look at something like www.postsecret.com . If the church is there, it cannot be irrelevant. If the church is not there then its relevance must be question.
disclaimer: I in no way am endorsing or agree with anything on postsecret.com, however I do feel it is an honest and sincere look at where people are at today.
thanks for the article!
Swoosh
www.africanwanderings.com
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