Our Message Must Be Relevant
One of the most peculiar postcards I’ve ever seen was sent to me one time. I read the little note on the back, containing a joke from a friend. But it was the picture on the front that got my attention. It was a picture of earth taken from some distance in space. The caption above it read, “Wish you were here.” Now, I’ve been accused of being a space cadet a couple times, but I never realized I was that far gone…
As I think about that image and that sentiment, I wonder if its not one that the church of Jesus Christ needs to consider. We’ve been talking the past couple weeks about how wrapped up the church has gotten in its own little world; How focused we’ve become on just taking care of ourselves and how out of touch the church as a whole has become with the needs and the lives of post-modern America. I wonder if this postcard couldn’t be sent to the church from the world itself. “Wish you were here” they would say. “Wish you were here with us, helping us through this very confusing and dark age…” I wonder if God himself couldn’t send the exact same signal to us. “Wish you were here. My lost children need a light… Wish you were here…”
Entirely too often people of our day have already discovered that the church and church-folks are saying and doing very little that has any relevance to their lives. Its not uncommon to hear people describe themselves as believers in God and even to profess belief in Jesus Christ, but only to find themselves swearing off any kind of ‘organized religion’ or commitment to the local church. They want no part of what they perceive to be complacency and out-of-touch mindset.
Things must change. If we are going to be a new church for this new millennium, the signals we send, our message must be relevant. We must make our message relevant to the lives of those who don’t yet know our Savior and Lord.
What does it mean to be relevant? How would you define that word? My good friends, who I’ve never met, who put together the American Heritage Dictionary define relevant as: “Related to the matter at hand, pertinent.” Something that has relevance has a capability to select, retrieve and communicate data appropriate to a user’s need.
Part of our problem is we have forgotten to whom our message should be relevant. Churches have assumed for years now that what we say, what we do, what we debate, what we plan should be relevant to the life of the church.
No sir.
Our message must be relevant to a lost, confused, darkened world that is desperately hungry for the love, the truth, the hope and the touch of Jesus Christ.
This idea of keeping our words, our thoughts, our message relevant is essential for our church, especially for three reasons I want to highlight this morning.
First, people in today’s culture are more selective than they ever been about where and when they are willing to give of their time, their energy, their resources. People are much less likely to just ‘try’ something if they don’t see why they should. “What’s in it for me?” “Will it taste good?” “Will I like it?” Thanks to the consumeristic nature of our country, people are very selective.
Second, people are far more protective than ever before. They’ve seen, heard or even experience organization and institutions and even churches that have taken advantage of people, used people and even harmed people. Families are very protective of each other, of their children and their principles.
Third, people today are very unresponsive when they don’t immediately perceive how what you’re saying is related to them. You hear people, young and old, talking about how ‘boring’ church is. Often what they’re saying is not that they aren’t amused… Often they’re saying that there’s nothing that they sense relates to them, nothing sounds relevant… so they’re unresponsive.
Our message must be relevant. But don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Sometimes when you hear people talking about making the gospel more relevant you can tell they’re going in a direction that isn’t necessarily in line with the character and nature of God’s church. Let me quickly tell you three things that making the message relevant doesn’t include.
When we talk about making the message relevant we are not talking about warping the gospel or church into some commodity we sell on the open market. Yes, there are some lessons we can learn about how to ‘get our name into the community’ from the marketing industry. But the church of Jesus Christ isn’t a business or a restaurant or a commodity. We’re not trying to raise consumer interest by showing them that lack something and purchase this handy-dandy religion toy will suddenly make their lives complete. We’re not selling a product they lack – we’re offering what is already at hand – the Kingdom of God, the King of Kings. There’s a very different mindset hidden in there somewhere. Consumerism is not going to bring hope or love or joy to anyone’s life. Jesus can’t we warped into some kind of over-the-counter fix-all product available on line for the low price…
And we’re not talking about Watering Down the truth or Biblical teachings of the church to somehow make Christianity easier to swallow. In fact, people today are already trying all the soft-sell, weak-kneed spirituality they can find. And the “Touched by Angel” quick, feel-good-moments are great. The “Sixth Sense” spirituality of life-after-death spooky moments are thought provoking. But it does little to bring into reality the power, the hope, the love that God has to offer. People aren’t afraid of the truth. In fact they’re looking for something with some meat, some teeth, some depth. That’s part of why Jesus was, and still is, such an amazing teacher. His truth rang in people’s heart as truth. What he said made sense on a level and in a way that nothing else can. We’re not watering down the truth here.
And thirdly, when we talk about our message being relevant we’re not wandering away from the church’s call from God to be a counter-culture agency. The church is not supposed to just ‘blend-in’ with the rest of the world. We are an outpost of Heaven – we should look different. We should stand out. We are salt, bringing healing. We are light, bringing truth. We are the aroma of Christ, bring a sweet smell of tender love. We are different and we cannot let ourselves wander away from that identity.
Our message must be relevant. Look at these words originally written by the Apostle Paul in his first letter the church at Corinth:
“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” 1 Corinthians 9: 19-23
Paul paints this picture of his ministry as a constant emphasis on making his message relevant to anyone who will listen. “To the Jews I become like a Jew, to win the Jews…. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak…” Paul’s not saying he’s turned into a chameleon who changes the colors of his life everytime the wall paper changes; he’s not talking about changing who he is… he changes how and what he communicates to make it relevant and life-changing to his audience at that moment.
That is our goal. Our goal, our aim is - our Message must be relevant so that it can be heard on a personal, life-changing level. The Message of God, the good news of our Savior and His Kingdom, must be delivered in a manner that is relevant to those who don’t know Jesus so that the Message can have a life-changing, personal affect on those who hear it. That’s why we exist – to share the good news of Jesus, the message of God’s love, to the people of our community in a manner that they recognize its relevance to their lives.
So how do we do this? I’m glad you asked. I’m going to show you three things we have to do to ensure that we are demonstrating to our community, to our family, friends and neighbors that the message of Jesus Christ is relevant to their lives.
First, We search for relevant channels through which we present the message of Christ. We search for channels to carry this message to people. A television studio can spend millions of dollars hiring actors, writers and directors. Can spend months filming and editing a program. But they still have to have viable, active channels to carry their message to the public. So do we.
We use our mouths as channels of the message. Our what comes out of our mouths has to sound relevant to lives of people. We sound relevant with our language. Substitutionary Atonement is a vital concept that the lost must come to understand – Jesus dying in their place. But no one who has never learned to speak church-ese will recognize those words. So instead, we translate the big $30 words into “he died for you.” Instead of talking in big, fancy religious words that just make average Americans feel dumb or left out we find common analogies, illustrations and language to talk about Jesus. Paul was terrific at this. He’d find something in town to use a means to talk about Jesus. “I see you have an alter dedicated to an unknown God…” or Paul would quote a local author or well known verse… Jesus himself was the king of this. He translated gigantic life-truths into simple parables that the uneducated could enjoy, appreciate and remember.
We have to use our mouths – even with our music. I think we’ve lost a great deal of perspective on this one. Martin Luther many years ago was looking for a way to help the people of his day learn to praise God in song. So he went into the pubs to find out what they were singing. He took a popular tune and set words to it… “A Mighty Fortress is Our God…” That’s a bar tune – popular music of the day used to communicate truth. Why do you think so much of the new music today sounds like pop-culture music of the boomers’ and baby busters’ era? People are taking music everyone already knows how to sing and putting God’s words and God’s touch on it.
Secondly, we also have to use our minds and intelligence God has given us to continually evaluate the structures and forums we use to teach people about Jesus. Plans and programs go out of style, go out of season, lose their appeal and become irrelevant. Think about the Gospel Meetings of years past. Great idea. Let’s get people together and talk about Jesus for a couple days. We’ll ransack the neighborhoods and say, “Hey, would you like to know more about Jesus?” They’ll come, they’ll hear and we’ll pray for Harvest. Great idea – in its time. People today don’t have the open schedule or the willingness or the interest in that format anymore. That structure is out of date. So we use our minds to create more relevant forums for talking about Jesus. And that’s the beauty of our age. There are new technologies that make talking about Jesus more accessible than ever. Through web pages, cell-phones and the like there are new and exciting forums and formats the new millennium church will have at its disposal to present Jesus in a way that the lost see as relevant.
Additionally, we have to use contemporary media to present this message. It is a fact proven by empirical research that the majority of Americans automatically assume that if an organization doesn’t use modern methods of communication and presentation that anything that group says must be irrelevant out outdated. And we really are the cusps of an information revolution. Today you can subscribe to a newspaper without ever having ‘printed paper’ put into your home. You can surf the Internet, download music and watch TV from a device you can hold in your palm. How we preach and how we teach is changing in dramatic ways. We live in a day when people learn in a completely different way and manner than their grandparents did. No longer do students walk into a classroom, sit a desk and watch a teacher write on the blackboard. We live in a time when educational organizations are wrestling with, listen to this collection of teaching formats: active learning, interactive learning, mutual learning, service learning, game learning, leisure learning, team learning, digital learning, network learning, entertainment learning… People spend their work-week around computers that think faster that Mr. Spock, talk to each other on their hand-held communicators, ‘beam’ themselves around town in their computerized four-wheel drive SUV shuttlecrafts, grab information off the web and email it across the globe.. and then suddenly step backwards in time to sit in a chair, read a handout, listen to a speaker and rely on a bound book to sing?
When the church refuses to use modern methods of communication we’re making it much easier for our enemy to convince the lost that we have nothing of value to say to them.
Now, for the record, I am excited about how we can use growing technology to channel our message for Jesus to people in this town. I am excited about how God can make his message heard with all of the new and dynamic tools available. And, for the record, I think that for a small, 16-month-old church with extremely limited resources, we are taking steps in the right direction. But we have plenty of room to grow. And thank God for those of you who are skilled, trained and gifted with the modern tools of communication. We need to continue to teach and to call the rest of us to using relevant channels to communicate God’s message with our community.
How do we make our message relevant to our community? First, we search for relevant channels. Secondly, we share with people relevant content of the message of Christ. We’re going to talk more about this in detail in the coming weeks. But let’s go ahead and address this: What we share with people must include content that is relevant to their lives. We have to share with the lost information or content that is specific to their needs. To the mother who has just lost her son in a car accident, you don’t start opening Paul’s epistles and begin teaching her about the doctrines of church governance. Instead, you speak to her specifically about Jesus and his words to those who suffered, about the Biblical promises God makes about Heaven and about hope.
The content of our message should be specific and must be substantive. I mentioned this earlier, we need to share with the everyone truth that has deep and profound meaning for their lives and for humanity itself. People need more than a touching story and a sweet poem, they need content that has substance.
And finally we share content that is straight, not watered down. We don’t have to pull our punches, as it were. We have no need to apologize for calling sin, sin. What is an abhorrence to God, is wrong. What is holy, is holy. Our content of the message of Christ must be specific, substantive and straight.
And thirdly this morning, if our message is going to be relevant, we must supply to the lost a relevant context for the message of Christ. What is the context of our message? Our lives. We are the context of God’s life-changing message.
Look at this quotation from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church:
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” 2 Corinthians 4: 7-12
We are the vessels of this message – it is the context of our lives that God writes down and reveals his life-changing, personal message of hope, power and love. The context of the message comes from a personal experience with the message and the original messenger – Jesus Christ.
The context of this message is our lives – a personal experience with Jesus. How do we make the message personal?
First, we hear. We have to hear God’s message for ourselves. We have to internalize the message. The Psalmist writes “I have hidden your word in my heart …” (Psalm 119:11) Again, looking at the writings of Paul, he says to the Corinthians: “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3: 2-3) The message of Jesus Christ must be written on our hearts.
We have to hear God’s word on a life-changing, personal level. That’s why you constantly hear us talking about reading the Bible. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But you can’t just talk about reading it. And you can’t read the Bible like you read a John Grisham novel. It has to brought into your life in a way that you can hear God’s voice. Ask God to help you do this. Ask him, “God what is it you want me to hear from this paragraph, this story, this encounter, this verse, this phrase…” God’s word has to infiltrate every corner of our lives, every crevice of our soul. And that takes time and effort.
Earlier this week I was attending a seminar taught by a professor from a school of theology on the West Coast. This professor was talking about different elements of preaching. One of the comments that stood out in my mind was a remark that describe preaching as an ‘incarnational’ act. And, in at its highest and best, preaching is incarnational – it is asking God to make his Word, his message fleshed again, if for only a few minutes.
One of the most difficult elements of preaching for me is the audacity and outlandish idea of speaking on God’s behalf. When I am preparing sermons the most difficult part of the process isn’t developing an outline, doing verse by verse analysis, researching others’ work on a passage, finding cute or useful analogies or stories, or even getting all the points to line with the same letter. The hardest part for me is the hours I spend spiritually wrestling with the heart of God’s message. Maybe others’ can approach this differently. But I can’t just stand in the pulpit and perform for the congregation a good outline that might be useful. I spend hours wading through the message I sense or see needing to be shared. I find I really can’t preach something until I find a way to connect myself with the message. It has to be in some manner, personal. I have to internalize the message. I have to bring the into my identity and into my life.
That is what we all have to do. We have to hear the message – we have to internalize it. This isn’t easy. At times it’s hard and demands a great deal of energy and effort. But until we internalize the message, we’re robbing the message of its power.
We’ll talk more about how we internalize the message, and what the internalized message really must be in an upcoming sermon.
After we hear the message, we share the message. We have to vocalize this life-changing message out of the context of our lives. I’m sure you know Romans 14:10. But I love Eugene Peterson’s re-wording of this familiar passage in The Message: “But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?”
How can they hear if nobody tells them? We are called to be tellers of God’s word. Let’s be honest – most of us have very little confidence in our abilities to vocalize our faith. We’re not sure we know what to say, we’re uncertain about when or to whom we should talk about our relationship with the Lord; we’re scared that we’ll open our mouths and end up embarrassing ourselves.
Often we’ve ended up convincing ourselves that all we have to do is just be moral people, stay away from evil. If we act upright enough others will know we’re Christians and they’ll join us and become a part of the Kingdom of God.
Yet clearly that is not the teaching of scripture. We have to vocalize our faith. We have to use our voices to make Jesus known. We hear and then we share – we share what we have heard, what we have discovered, what we have lived.
We share the message out of our own lives. God’s not calling you into the clergy to deliver 20 page dissertations to the world on the ethical considerations of Holy Spirit baptism. But he is calling you to go and share what others God has done for you. What God has done for you is what He wants you to share. That’s what Jesus told the formerly demon-possessed man who calls himself Legion. He says to him “Go and tell what the Lord has done for you.” (See Mark 5:19)
Remember that little, simple song: “Sing. Sing a song. Make it simple to last the whole day long. Don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing. Sing a song.”
We spend all kinds of time letting ourselves believe that we don’t know what to say, what to do, how to tell others about Jesus. But that is not true. What God has taught you, what you have seen in your walk with Christ, how your life has changed is what God wants you to say. The love song that God is writing in your heart is the song He wants you to sing to anyone who even might listen.
The third point on the outline is after we hear, after we share, we have to guide people with the message. We have to intensify the message of the Kingdom of God through discipleship, ministry and fellowship. We’ll talk more about the maturing and growth process another time.
My point this morning is rather straightforward. I greatly cherish the work we are doing in trying to minister and serve and communicate hope in this community. I admire the forward thinking and the bravado demonstrated by the four families that started this church some 15 months ago. God has used their faith and their faithfulness in powerful ways in a very short time.
But today, the challenge is greater than ever. The programming and efforts of this congregation are wonderful tools. Events like the Medical Mission are essential and powerful. But that alone is not going to make us relevant to the lives of our community. We can continue to search for relevant channels through which to communicate the gospel – utilizing the newest and most innovative technologies.
But eventually we will be left with a simple challenge that has been laid on the hearts of women and men since the days of Jesus. We must make our message relevant by revealing Jesus Christ through the context of our own lives. Our message must internalized and then it must be vocalized. That is why we exist – to make Jesus known through our own lives. Go and tell what the Lord has done for you.
This morning, I hope you hear God’s call to His church of the new millennium. Our Message must be relevant. It must be delivered through relevant channels. It must be based on relevant content. And it must come from the context of our lives. Let us hear God’s word like never before. And then let’s sing that love song to anyone who will listen.
Kyle Meador
New Heights Church of Christ
106 N. Main
Owasso, Oklahoma 74055
newheightschurch@yahoo.com
www.newheightsfamily.org
