I am strangely unsettled tonight.
Nobody Loves Me by Derek Webb
"The truth is never sexy, so it's not an easy sell. You can dress her like the culture, but she'll shock 'em just as well. She don't need an apology for being who she is and she don't need your help making enemies."I would like to read what you guys have to say regarding this matter, so I open the floor.
3 comments:
I would encourage you to read Mark Dever's book "The Gospel and Personal Evangelism", that you got in your goodie bag from WhiteBoard. Mark spends some time talking about this very issue. Of utmost importance to him is the tendency among churches, or simply people evangelizing, is changing the message along with the package it comes in. Our goal as evangelists (this is every believer's responsibility), is to ensure the accurate Gospel message is communicated, and we must be careful that the package we wrap it in does not take away anything from the truth of the Gospel. That being said, contextualization is very important to Dever - this I didn't hear in his message at WhiteBoard, but have since understood where he stands.
The "packaging", as you put it, is simply meeting people where they are. Acts 17 is the poster child example of this methodology. I sometimes cringe at the "pop-culture"-like nature of some church services, but I have to ask myself a few questions:
- Is Jesus Christ being glorified?
- Is the true gospel message being communicated? (i.e. Is the reality of human sin exposed? Is the message of redemption through Jesus Christ expressed - and that by grace through faith?
- Are we compromising the message in favor of appealing to a crowd?
- Are we demonstrating ourselves as being in the culture but not of the culture? (i.e. Are we set apart?)
Look also at how Paul communicates to the Romans in chapter 1, and how he addresses first and foremost the universality of man's condition - not just Jews, not just Greeks. He then very appropriately steps into the particulars of God's plan to fix the problem. Look at Jesus and the difference in his technique when addressing Nicodemus vs. the woman at the well.
Another example, though not as obvious, are the various versions of the Bible we have available to us. As silly as it seems, I've experienced the language of the KJV become a stumbling block to many people. Hence, the NIV, NASB, ESV, etc. These all are simply attempts to communicate God's word in our language today, where the KJV has some obvious linguistic shortcomings for the 21st century English-speaking world - though a very good text.
I certainly know where you're coming from. It can be difficult to distinguish the package from the content - and if the packaging is so glittery that it hinders people from seeing its contents, then change must be considered.
I'm also not too fond of the term "Cutting-Edge Christianity", and all that implies.
i would just like to say that i am glad to see you quoting songs from that cd already...
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