Wednesday, April 16, 2008
"meet my needs" summed up
Our culture is asking "how is this message (church in general) relevant to my life?" In asking this, we are seeking to transform God's message to meet our particular situation, rather than allowing God's message to transform us. In other words, we remain unchanged, but God's message changes--and that is the problem.
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2 comments:
Now I'm curious as to what side of the "issue" you're standing on...
This sounds like sound advice from someone, saying "If you're questioning the relevance of a message, maybe you're not doing the right thing here..."
I think I have tired of the term "relevancy" because it has become so inward focused.
However, I am not affirming a status quo approach.
Rather, I view the situation as a matter of translation. The pastor has been trained, gifted and called to preach in a manner that translates the scriptures into our particular contexts (this is very similar to "make relevant," but it recognizes limitations).
But there is a tendency to go too soft in our desire to make things relevant that it not longer continues the original message.
OSteen is an obvious hyperbole example, but as I sat in a local church's Saturday evening worship service where scripture is cut and spliced throughout his "talk" (pulling from here, a garnish from there) I realized the danger of adapting God's message to what our felt needs are.
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