Being relevant

Do you worry when you invite people to church about how they will respond? Will they mock me? Will they ridicule me? They are some of the responses we get but most often it is juts a; 'No thanks, its not for me.'

Why is that? It's not because the gospel does not save because it is the power of God for salvation and that never changes. It is because people do not see the gospel as we do. We know that it is life changing, that it frees, that it brings peace with God, saves us from judgement and gifts us eternal life. But actually our friends, family, work colleagues do not know that.

In fact most people today think Christianity is about keeping a set of rules. It is not real it has not moved with the times. It has little to do with the world that they live in. I wonder if they have a point.

Churches need to show a reverence for God and a relevance for the culture. If we do not have both either we are unacceptable to God or inaccessible to people.

What is relevance?

Relevance - what is it? It's what people want in our busy world isn't it, relevance. Cut to the chase, tell me what I need to know, don't give me all the details just the facts. It's partly the result of the pressure we all feel under, pressure to get the job done, pressure to get the answers, to complete the task, to save time, to be efficient. But what is really relevant?

I sat with a 90 year old lady yesterday afternoon whose mind was as sharp as they come. She was asking why people don't have time for God any more? How they find meaning in life without the gospel and the good news that Jesus died to remove the judgement we face and give us a future we can look forward to rather than fear.

Her conclusion was that people just don't have the time to think about questions like that, let alone have time to think about them. No time to stop and ponder what the meaning of life is, to ask; Why am I here?

I think it all comes down to relevance. It's easy in the rush of the workplace/family home/gym/retirement/whatever to think that what is relevant is only what is immediate. What's relevant is those figures I need to complete my report, what's relevant is how my child is doing in school, not how the school or staff are doing. What's relevant is how I improve my standard of living now. And we fool ourselves by consoling ourselves with the thought that there is time for that later.

It means that the questions about what is immediately relevant push out the real question about what is ultimately important. Why am I here? How did the universe come to be? If Jesus was an historical character what does it mean? What happens after I die?