If you've heard David Whiting's message on "Old Couches" and read "Part 1" then you may begin to recognize distinct issues "Old Couches" start to present when Churches adopt them as imperatives.
The 1st Century Church didn't limp onto the cultural scene. It exploded. Quickly read Acts 2:42 & 47. Can you imagine the excitement at a church that mega-formed into existence when its membership grew by 3,000 in a day? When members were being added daily? Sadly it doesn't often echo the church experienced by many, if any, of us today.
If I seem to be insistent upon the cultural relevance of the Church it's because I am. I took a 20 year hiatus from attending any type of worship service or Church as I pondered the following questions: "If Church is right, if it's such a great place, then how come I don't get it? Why is so seemingly monotonous? Why do we go through the motions and nothing seems to happen?" And "If this is to celebrate the biggest thing in the universe where is everybody?"
In other words . . . "Why is it the same old thing all the time?" . . . More candidly, "Why is it so distant and boring?"
And the answer came back: "Because it often is."
Where The Church struggles is in the accomplishment of its sole, and soul, imperative. And that imperative is how to best implement and execute the Great Commission at any given point in time. Simply stated it's the answer to the age old dilemma of how to best win souls for the sake of Christ and The Kingdom. From time to time we, The Church, have come up with some brilliant ideas. We've risen and met the needs of a culture and made the Gospel accessible and desirable to that day and age. Throughout history Christ body has stepped up and stepped out of its' comfort zone and accomplished amazing works for the glory of God and our Savior. But between those markers we seem to sink into the backdrop of the decades and fade into the gray background of time. We lose touch and, as they say, we become "out of sight and out of mind."
Once again the Americanized version of the Church may be at an imperative crossroads where it will need to step up and catch up to a culture that is changing at lightning speeds or choose to be locked in time and passed by like the 19th century antiquity it often mimics. While we haven't abandoned the framework of our doctrine and teachings we've neglected our relevance and our attractiveness. We've forgotten to change the faded fabric and our appeal to match the needs and desires of today's culture.
We're often standing at the door offering Kool-Aid to a RedBull culture. They've grown up and moved on. MTV and VH1 aren't cutting edge anymore and haven't been for 28 years. Metaphorically, some Church cultures are just getting cable in a wireless age and yet others are still wrapping tin foil around the rabbit ears. Recognize it, or not, most Church "traditions" lost their relevance and were dragged to the curb decades ago by a culture that has passed us by in search of something more tangible and something they can relate to. We can sit, arms crossed, on our old couches and we can stand in the doorway defiantly holding back the cultural winds of change while we defend our traditions against ourselves, and strangely enough, often for our own comfort. Somehow we've adopted an attitude that seemingly equates the antiquity of The Gospel with the acceptable antiquity of our buildings, seating, practices, habits, and list of "must dos". We've locked horns with the idea of cultural adaptation. And the light, once set upon a hill in a steepled church, is growing dim behind stained glass, marred wood paneling, musty carpeting, millennial aged verbose hymns, and programs that still offer watered down cool aid to a new generation that thirst for The Truth. The "real" truth . . . the truth it can relate to, understand, and grab onto.
The message of Christ has an amazing ability to cross cultures, continents, languages, and generations. It's the Church's duty to ensure that the barriers to Christ are removed. Our obligation is to keep it the things we do, implement, and practice, real and meaningful to a human culture that is easily lured away and swept downstream. Agree with the culture of the day, or not, Christ matters to the culture because the people within that culture matter to Christ.
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