Wow…I have not posted in a while. This past weekend I took 39 youth to Youth Quake 2006 at Briercrest and it was a blast <wheww!>. It was also tiring. What an event. It appears to be chaotic and yet there is definitly a great deal of order – how else can you house, feed, and generally move around more than 3,000 senior high youth around a campus? It was a great mix of worship, prayer, preaching, teaching, music and fellowship (and almost no sleep). The bus ride (8 hours there, 8 hours back) was also very rewarding in terms of relationship development.
Now – on to the topic of this post.
As someone who was called to ministry out of a career in software marketing I know what it feels like to be constantly chasing after "the next big thing" in terms of message. Now I have noticed that when it comes to church and ministry pastors are constantly falling into either one extreme or another – very few seem to be able to find a balance. Here’s what I mean:
There is a temptation for some to get so worried that people will be bored that they are constantly chasing after the next big fad for their service. At the other end of the spectrum are people who couldn’t give a rip if people are bored. The service, as wonderful as it is, was designed 400 years ago somewhere in Saxony and if it was good enough for our forefathers then by golly its good enough for us.
Somewhere in there is a balance. Of course, in all things, if we look to Christ I think we find our answer. In this case I think it is important to recognize that God has given us a certain amount of latitude because scripture is relatively vague in terms of an order of service. One can also see that God was sensitive to cultural relevance in terms of His own actions.
Take for example the incarnation, quite frankly this is the ultimate expression of cultural relevance – God says "As part of my eternally known plan to save my people I am going to communicate my truth to them. Now I can appear to them but my holy presence would overwhelm them so I must veil my glory. I can speak to them in dreams, in the law, through prophets and prophetess’s, through burning vegetation, pillars of fire and cloud, angels, etc. Nevertheless they never seem to get it." God’s children that is.
How does God choose to communicate with broken humanity? He says the best way for me to do this is to become one of them, to put on flesh, walk with them, eat with them, sleep with them, cry with them, feel pain like them, and die like them. So God condescends to become human (still maintaining His complete "Godness") and live in the stinking, broken filth of a world whose rule has been temporarily given over to His adversary. I don’t know if we can really understand how culturally relevant that act is. That an eternal God took on human flesh…He loved us that much.
This act of God should inform our own ministry and service to His people. God could have said –
"I am far too holy to suffer the indignity of living amongst them. I am far too holy to suffer the indignity of breathing in their filth, of coming so close to them and their sin, to go to their weddings and eat their food. If they cannot understand me as I am in my utter transcendance too bad for them."
This is often what we as members of the body of Christ say in regards to our culture and those whom God would save. Those whom He loves. We say –
"God is too holy for us to act this way, sing this kind of music, pray this way, change our building, move the organ, adapt the sermon, etc."
We believe somehow we must maintain God’s transcendance as though He never chose to dwell amongst us in the first place. As Andy Stanley (pastor and writer) has said – we must learn to separate our methodology from our theology – because although they inform one another – they are distinctly different.
God’s truth NEVER changes. His Word remains exactly the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. BUT – we change. His Word exists to communicate to us and we change. The way we understand things changes, culture changes, and so the way we present the eternal unchanging truth in Christ MUST change as well. We must be Christ who is the God that did not speak Aramaic in Heaven but did so 2,000 years ago because of the culture He wished to communicate to. He is the God who likely does not drink wine in Heaven but creates it at the wedding because He has a message to communicate.
We are the body of Christ continuing His mission of unfolding the Kingdom of God and destroying the Kingdom of Satan. We must continue in the act of being relevant because of our love of humanity which is God’s love. Iin the process we must never compromise the truth in Christ – this is the balance that must be struck, grace without compromise – to be able to say to the person:
"Is there no one here who condemns you? No. Than neither do I? Now go and sin no more."
Harnessing Chaos 
hey pete that was an amazing uthquake eh!i personally got closer to got and it was just amazing. God really spoke out to me!!
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Interesting thoughts.Despite our diverging views on theology in general (or perhaps it\’s theology in specifics we disagree on, but whatever), I completely agree with you on this. Indeed, I want to point out:We believe somehow we must maintain God\’s transcendance as though He never chose to dwell amongst us in the first place.This is the biggest mistake "The Church" makes. While yes, god, by definition is a however power/consciousness/whathaveyou, I never have imaged hir as someone who held themselves aloft from us "lowly humans". Indeed, the mythology shows Jesus as not only living amongst us, but associated with the "lowest of the low". We must ask ourselves who god would be if he was to live amongst us today. How do we know that he doesn\’t? Maybe he would find traditional services boring.The way we understand things changes, culture changes, and so the way we present the eternal unchanging truth in Christ MUST change as well.WORD. Oh my god, word. And that is very important to you as a youth minister to remember as well.
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hey youth pastor pete!it was such an amaaaaziing wknd of uth quakish funnn!!! lol it was so good i strengthened my girl buds relationshipss, danced the night away, well not literally got closer to some of the girl youth leaders, and as for you your just like another friend/dad ish to me..lol if that makes sense! yeah it was good all though God didn\’t really speak to me except like he loves me and stuff! well have a good one!
rachel
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