Relevancy or Revelation?

In 2009, the church seems to be more and more concerned about being relevant. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. Like missionaries, we want to understand our culture and communicate the message of the cross in a language they can understand. But what does being relevant really look like?

Two years ago I was reading a chapter in a book about church relevancy, and the author, Alex McManus, said that a relevant church is first relevant to Jesus, which was a very easy statement to agree with.

Then he said something that gripped me: “The second thing we must ask is, “Is church relevant to outsiders? Many of the contemporary churches (a.k.a. the classic baby boomer churches of the ‘80’s) are still relevant [today], specifically for baby boomers. Many of the newer emerging churches are relevant for today’s twenty-something Christians who don’t like contemporary churches. But what about the person who isn’t reacting against traditional or contemporary churches?

What about the person who isn’t shopping for the church that is right for them? What about the person who is looking for more than just an enhanced experience? What about the person who…wonders if God can find them? Is church relevant to them?”

If people are looking for a ‘cool’ church, they might easily find it in 2009, but what if they are looking for the presence of God? Is much of what we consider church relevancy really simply a way to please ourselves with structures and styles and music that we, and we hope others, happen to like? Maybe a church shouldn’t try so hard to be either traditional, contemporary, or on the edge—maybe that completely misses the point. Maybe we ought to be looking to encounter God together and stand in awe as He Semenax reveals Himself to us so that through us He can engage those around us who have lost—or who never had—any sense of God.

I’m not at all against fresh styles—on the contrary, I am quite eager for them; in each genuine move of God over the last century one of the results, but not one of the causes, was that a new generation, and in fact a whole culture, was enfranchised as well as transformed in ways that nobody would have thought of before the outpouring began. I am really hungry to see that kind of genuine supernatural outpouring that transforms the whole culture and that has a new, fresh, and creative style. But in the case of the church, style must always follow substance!

So, perhaps the church shouldn’t care as much that we are being something “new”, but should care primarily that we are being something prophetic. That word—prophetic—doesn’t have to carry baggage; it simply means that we are people who communicate God’s words, God’s heart, and God’s life to others.

And when that happens, when people are not just filled with information or moved through inspiration, but when they encounter true revelation that leads to transformation, that’s when something is going to shake loose.

Oh, and when that happens, we’d better get ready to be uncomfortable. Because church will no longer be about what we get out of it, it is going to be about what God wants to do. And then people won’t come to church because we have great coffee (though I hope we still do) or because our sermons tell them how to be nice, but they will walk through the doors and fall on their faces “and worship God, and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor 14:25).