Whenever I think about churches in my home town and surrounding area, irrelevance comes to mind. Now I know that this is a term that is perhaps overused and misunderstood, but I think it sadly sums up what is happening or not happening in the church today. Most of our churches are still attempting to use outdated methods to communicate the transformational message of Jesus. They appear unwilling to change or embrace new ideas to address the obvious societal changes taking place in the 21st century or perhaps are simply uninterested in the surrounding world and are satisfied to carry on under the mantra of "we've always done it this way," or "if it was good enough for my father, it's ood enough for me." 

So that I'm not misunderstood, I'll clarify this - I'm not suggesting that the church should change the message, on the contrary, we are called to share this same life-changing that the apostle Paul did centuries ago. What I'm getting at is this - the church needs to know the culture around them and adapt their methods accordingly.

There are many churches that are not afraid to talk about culturally relevant topics, such as sex, poverty, justice. By engaging in these topics in their worship services they are witnessing many coming who are coming to faith in Christ. Westwinds in Jackson Michigan is an example of just such a church. They do their best to introduce Jesus to the culture by embracing culture.

Through my weekly contacts at the semenary I attend I get a sense that many are satisfied to ignore the community in favour of keeping the saints happy. Does this bother anyone else? Recently, I've been reading a couple of books that have caused me to re-evaluate my own thinking. One of the books is Killing Cockroaches by Tony Morgan. Morgan says  that we need to realize that those outside the church do not undertand our big words. He also states that "Real faith is dynamic. It's controversial. It's dangerous. It's contantly growing. It asks challenging questions." This tels me two things: First, we need to figure out how to communicate what we believe with clarity, and secondly, we need to be real in our relationships with those whose spiritual journey is in it's infancy and recognize that it's okay to not have all the answers.

I don't believe this can be acommplished without being relevant to the culture. My comments are not meant to slam our local churches; I'm just really concerned that we are not having any real impact on our society and that I, too, need to figure out how to engage those around me.