irrelevance

Today I was struck with several glaring examples of irrelevance in the Church. I know there is a lot of back and forth about being "relevant" and "contextualizing" the message, and I get both sides. Some people say "your message is always contextualized whether you know it or not, so I might as well be aware of how you're coming across to others" and the other side basically says "to contextualize the gospel is to give room for relativism, and ultimately to the erosion of absolute truth." I can understand both sides, but here's my point: if you're not going to be "relevant" at least don't be irrelevant.

We watched a video where Bill Hybels explained in under 8 minutes how to present the gospel in three different ways using only a sharpie and a restaurant napkin. come on... seriously? The sad part is that it probably was their attempt at being relevant. I'm not saying I've never drawn a napkin diagram to explain something to someone, I just think we're looking for more than napkin theology. Although that would make an interesting Christian spin off of indexed, which is one of my favorite blogs.

Earlier today was St. Luke's (presumably) first-ever "healing service" we put a sign out front, a note in the bulletin, and I think people came with mixed expectations. I think they were probably all disappointed. Here was the message, summarized as best I could (I took notes)

Three signs of Abundant Life:
1)if healing doesn't come it's because you don't have enough faith
2)healing will always come for everyone in death
3)therefore, abundant life is all about life after death, not before.

a direct quote: "The secret to good health is knowing that Jesus loves you"

summary thought (paraphrased, but pretty close:) sure you can pray for healing, but you won't be really healed until you're dead and gone to heaven, but we can all get together and pray anyway because it might make us feel better.

THAT is the kind of genuine spiritual truth our generation needs someone to speak to us. THAT is a message of hope. I think sermon time should always be followed by "question time" and in this case maybe even "rebuttal" time.

for more on my thoughts on the issue of prayer and healing, you can check out my other blog.

ALSO, I am still working on my post about time. It's turned out to be a little harder to nail down than I originally thought it would be, so it might be a few more days.

My Call

A lot of people lately have been asking me to explain my "call to ministry," and this is not really an easy thing for me. It's looked a lot of different ways over the years, and sometimes even nonexistent, and yet it remains. I have been learning these past few years to broaden my idea of "God's Call" from something specific like a job to something broad like a general frame of mind. God has called me to peace. God has called me to openness. God has called me to understanding.

I will follow that call.

A lot of times God's call also sounds a lot like my wife. Now I know this is a totally lame cliché that old pastors whip out at their own retirement parties, but it also happens to be true for me. I would be frothing lattés and wondering where my life went wrong if it weren't for Sarah, and now together we are looking forward to a new chapter of life and ministry. Right now I know more about what I don't want to do then what I do (one word: evangicube) but I know God will bring us to something that's right for us. Either that or I will have a lot to write about this fall...