He went on to say, “We have exchanged power for technology, and we cover our lack of God’s presence with expensive lights and shows. Our pulpits ring empty because those filling them preach borrowed sermons and have no grasp of the text. What the previous generation called biblical fundamentals, the current generation calls revelation because it does not know the scriptures.”
Strong words, but I’m afraid they ring true. Another perspective comes from a successful minister training association that encourages their students to simply download and preach the same sermons that the leader preaches. The reason being that they are too “busy” to be praying, reading the Bible and getting their own sermons.
Many of the adherents take this so far as to memorize the gestures, laughter and movements of the personalities they perceive as successful, and do their best Sunday morning imitations. I was personally told that if I did not adopt this way of doing things I would fail!
While the Church has seen tremendous membership transfer through these approaches, the hurting and hopeless still roam our cities, our coffee shops and businesses with a deep, unyielding feeling of being irrelevant. I have discovered that most people really do not feel like they belong or have a meaningful place in society.
Feeling irrelevant is a much more general experience than we might think when we look at our seemingly self-confident society. Yet, when we replace prophets with models, and exchange the attire of John the Baptist for soft raiment (Matthew 11:8) only to appear relevant — we, in fact, isolate ourselves from the hurting people of the world who have no idea where to look for healing.
They cut themselves to find feeling.
They starve themselves to find acceptance.
They turn to same sex relationships for meaning.
All the while, those of us with the message of hope use our resources looking for the latest imagery so that we can appear in step with a culture that has no step. A culture that does not know who it is, so how then can we fit in with an undefined, aching people?
The Church of today, and the future, must return simply to being relevant to God. Return to knowing His heart and proclaiming it.
When we know His heart we will consistently, radically and concretely announce and reveal that God is love. Every time fear, isolation and despair try to seep into the human soul, there is a Church standing to say, as irrelevant and isolated as you may feel, the Lord has felt that as well. He was rejected and irrelevant, so that He could make you accepted in the beloved!
Weird? Maybe. The truth? Absolutely!
I wonder if we have fallen for the smoke and mirrors of “relevance” and made ourselves entirely irrelevant to a dying generation.
