What is Relevance

We have to be relevant to be able to reach out to people. People live in a specific context. Every person in the world  is part of a nation, a culture and a community. Every person is part of a larger context. They live a real world with a real culture.

This is true, so now we have to be relevant to be able to make God more relevant to the people of a specific culture. Wow.

My question? How do we measure relevance? How do we decide what is the most relevant in the times we live in? What is the measure we use? Shall we look at the current culture? Ask yourself how does the current culture differ from the culture your mom and dad grew up in. Look at how their culture differed from the culture your grandparents grew up in. Do you think there is a difference? Looking at culture from this angle and  it becomes clear that human culture is perhaps one of the most fleeting constructs that exist.

Being relevant in our churches lead to such things as sermon series based on specific films or television series, or having a circus or other type of performance in church. People seem to think that relevance is preaching on specific 'current' issues, such as relationships, or parenting, or sex performance, rather that preaching Scripture.

I want to suggest that we may be using the wrong measure when we discuss relevance. Why should the peculiarities of a specific culture be more relevant than age-old truths. When we preach on a film or television series, are we very sure that everyone in the congregation knows this film or series, or are we preaching only to the part of the congregation that enjoys sci-fi, or romantic comedies, or reality TV?  Is that relevant?

We do not need to rescue the Gospel, as if it will disappear for ever if the present culture cannot find a connection with it. Over 2000 years the Gospel proved that it can survive martyrdom, complacency, wars etc. for 2000 years the Gospel has done quite well on it's own, without being relevant to a specific culture, but across cultures. Why is this the case? The truths contained in Scripture, both in the Old and the New Testaments, have proven to be relevant to people's situations, whatever culture or time, or nation they lived in. 

God is relevant! Always, in all circumstances. We need not tamper with Biblical texts, or sell ourselves to the culture to make this so. God is relevant, and His Revelation for us, as contained in the inspired Word of Scripture is relevant, and has been relevant for centuries. What makes us think that in out time we suddenly need to change the truth, as if that is even possible.

If we stick to the truth, as revealed to us, the Holy Spirit applies it in a relevant way, to address people's pain and suffering, to convict people and comfort them, to bring them into the loving embrace of Christ as they receive forgiveness. A Gospel that has proved effective for 2000 years, over time, countries, cultures, definitely does not need for us to apply it differently for our little moment in time and our little space in the universe, where the culture will just continue to change.

A tyrannical religion

I have listened to quite a few of the seeker-driven 'sermons'. I do not understand why it is supposed to draw seekers because this is the most tyrannical religion ever. It is not acceptable to confront people with their sin as this will drive people away. It is such a negative concept. So now we call it bad choices, imperfections, little mistakes and so forth. The problem though, as pointed out by different people, is that without preaching sin, one cannot preach the Grace of God. If sin doesn't really exist, what do we need grace for? What we have now is a religion based on principles from Scripture, where all the different stories are merely in the Bible to show us how to make our dreams come true, or not to miss the great dream God is dreaming for us. Looking at all the different Bible stories it is clear that there must all in all be about 687 principles identified by now by which one absolutely HAVE to live by to find and live God's dream for you. You REALLY don't want to miss THAT? Those principles are for dreams only. There is another multitude of principles, shown us clearly from examples in Scripture, of how to raise healthy children, how to save your marriage, find the best job ever etc. etc. etc. On top of that comes the imperatives that one have to live by to make yourself blessable (even my spellchecker knows that word doesn't exist). Making yourself blessable include financial principles. You surely want God to give you the blessings in store for you, all those blessing He cannot give you because He is incapable of doing anything if you don't open His hands. The point is that you end up with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of principles that your life depends on. You have to do all this and don't think you can get out of it, because there is no real grace. Our Saviour has become merely another example from which we can get life principles. There is no grace, no salvation, nothing. Can you imagine the unbearable burden to keep all the different parts of your life in one piece. Is it not much more kind, loving and seeker sensitive to help people face their sins head-on and then share with them the infinite Grace of God, the fact that God gave His only Son, so that we can be forgiven.