beyond relevance...deep significance

...there is this little Whisper in the back of my mind

it's been growing louder and becoming a burden, so i'm going to share my burden

the small voice is saying something about an idol...and the name attached to it: relevance

...from relevant magazine to relevant church to relevant this and relevant that...'relevance' has become a momentary idol among the chic christian hipster crowd

[sidenote: from my cynic's dictionary under the heading chic: considered smart without the deadening implcation of intelligence]

(sorry, couldn't help myself)

yet, it is not that relevance is bad...especially when it comes to announcing, embodying and demonstrating the good news of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus

and because the church in north america and europe were on a slow drift and had become increasingly irrelevant to their own cultural milieu is precisely why relevance has re-joined and re-entered into the conversation about mission in europe and north america (after having long been critical to Jesus' mission to the ends of the earth)

and here is another thing: "church" still works for lots of people right now...it gives many people a sense of belonging...it cares for them...meets deep felt needs...it's applicable to their lives...yet all of these issues are the consequences of church, not primary

(aside: being applicable to your life and actually applying it to your life are two separate but related issues that are needful)


i was recently reading about a relevant outreach to skaters from a relevant church written about in relevant magazine...

funny how buzzwords take over, become something...possibly in an subtle, idolatrous way...(when i say idolatrous i mean: replacing Jesus as the center)

here is the thing: there are two sides to relevance, because it's not that we don't want to be relevant, but we don't have to be overly relevant in a shallow kind of way...but relevance - as in cultural relevance - has much to do with currency, in that to 'stay relevant' those 'being relevant' are always pursuing the new 'cultural relevance'. such a slippery slope, kind of like always seeking to be cutting edge...now, i'm not saying we do not need people on the cutting edge, we do, we need people on the faultlines of the gospel, because that's where soulquakes happen that change culture...and in saying that, i think that is what i am getting at: baptizing the culture, idolizing the culture, incarnating in all-the-wrong-ways (like me buying a bunch of sweatpants and a skateboard to reach out to skaters) misses the very thing we intend, because there is a discerning distance or difference that is inherent in being an incarnated follower of Christ, which i think is the point in what shane claiborne and chris haw have to say in their new book, 'jesus for president':

"...the question is not are we political, but how are we political. The question is not are we relevant, but are we peculiar? The answer lies in how we embody what we believe. Our greatest challenge is to maintain the distinctiveness of our faith in a world gone mad. And all of creation waits, groans, for a people who live God's dream with fresh imagination."

i think jason clark also brings understanding and humility to what i am seeking to get at as well in his observation about retreating to a subjective private gnosis of 'relevance':

"Within my context the protestant church has seemingly retreated into the subjective private gnosis of 'relevance' with it's myriad progressions of worship aesthetics, be that charismatic revivalism, purpose driveness, or alternative worship, whilst on the other hand it has turned to a reified and objectified faith around some form of biblical fundamentalism...Much of the emerging church has been self consciously located around the notion of 'conversations', and whilst I have found it's largely irenic dialectic immensely helpful, I think Hütter exposes one of the ecclesial limitations of this emerging church moment...In other words ecclesiology collapses into the conversations about church, the flux and idealizations of talking about what church might be (and often the pathology of what it isn't), such that ecclesiology remains a hermeneutical horizon of discussions about church, rather than a concrete reality of growing and new communities with new Christians. No reference is needed to practices and habits of concrete church locations and communities."

in the end, relevance can be significant, distinctive and good; as opposed to a much more - and easier - shallow relevance...because when we are incarnational (being embodied: 'coming from within') and missional (relating to or connecting with the mission of Christ in this now-and-not-yet age), we are both relevant and peculiar at the same time...and that makes it significant

my friend mike barrett hits the sentiment on the head when we talks about wanting to not be irrelevant...because i want to be relevant to my daughters, even though i may not be a part of the currently relevant elementary school culture they swim in...but because of my enduring relationship, i have a deeper significance in their lives

but i think there is this middle ground, of being peculiar...and surprisingly relevant

because we can be overly relevant...and get lost in the tapestry of the culture...which very well makes you irrelevant, doesn't it?
so, here is the other issue with reaching beyond relevance to deeper significance: relevance gets twisted to still be all about us; it's more sectarian, more of a retreat to little cultural ghettoes almost...

[question/beginning answer: does it take a white man to incarnate the gospel to white people? does it take a asian man to incarnate the gospel to asians? (au contraire mon frer)]

do i need to become a skater-dude to reach out and love skater dudes and dudettes as Christ loves them? (if i tried to be a skater-dude, i might be relevantly silly to them) or can i, middle-class white male that i am, reach out in the love of Christ to poorer hispanic women or or wealthy black men or beanie-wearing skater-dudes?

...and when i do reach out with Christ's love, i just might find that Jesus is surpisingly relevant to all of us...