Saturday, January 24, 2004

If it's the Truth, then...

Totem to Temple has a link to a Razormouth post titled Hi, I’m 21, have we met? In it Trenton Starnes offers an open letter to the relevant and hip mega-churches. There is a lot I like in this post. Starnes addresses the idea of seeker-sensitive mega churches watering down the Gospel with lines like, "I basically know what I can expect: a rockin’ praise and worship band, Academy-nominated skits, and a non-boring, non-threatening, non-lengthy sermon with movie clips interspersed for good measure," and, "I wanted something different. I wanted something to stand out. I wanted something confrontational. I want to be offended. I picked up the Bible and read it; it offended me. It also grabbed my attention, and I wanted more of it. It’s relevant to me; you aren’t." Yet I'm struck at, once again, with the me, me, me, me, me, me mentality inherent in the character (albeit fictional). For instance, "And the power point? I learned that in fourth grade. It’s so nineties… but then again, it seems like most of your church is still stuck there, which isn’t surprising, since your average age in here is 40, twice my age." or "I know, you have a rockin’ praise band. But if you look really close, you’ll notice that it a bunch of thirty or forty something’s trying to be my age." or "The problem is, you just don’t know my generation. That’s why you’re losing us. Awesome job of being relevant. You lost me, and you’re losing us. I just thought you’d like to know." "You lost me, and you're losing us." I think what I'll be doing over the next several weeks is studying the Bible to see what it outlines as normative behavior for the Church. In particular I will be looking to see if the Church should: 1) alter the delivery of its message based on the likes / dislikes of the group in question, 2) alter the average age of its congregation to satisfy the likes / dislikes of the group in question, 3) alter the fact of the Gospel Truth to satisfy the cultural worldview of the group in question.

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