As with most things, there are two extremes when looking at how much a pastor should relate to his flock. On one extreme is, for example, language. To effectively communicate to our audience we do need to speak the language of the prevailing culture. On the other extreme is, for example, smoking pot in Amsterdam to relate to its pot smoking culture. Somewhere in between are R-rated movies, swearing, stylish shoes and reality television shows. Can a balance be struck between these two extremes?
A lot of pastors have gone the route of trying to find a balance. Their sermon analogies include references and video clips of popular television shows and movies. They relay stories from the pulpit about speeding in their cars and fighting with their wives thinking that in order to be effective teachers they must be relatable. Then under the auspices of relevancy, these same pastors are telling us that we have to change how we do church so as to better relate to the “post-modern” culture. We’re told that we need to not be afraid to look to other religions to see how they worship and we need to open our minds to the leadership principles that successful business leaders employ.
But the way we “do church” is not the problem. The problem is that we have an abundance of “relevant” pastors with huge churches leading by focus groups, but very few pastors who are willing to put their desire to be relatable aside and challenge people to be holy.
Our job as leaders in the Church is to lead people into a faith based relationship with Christ. How do we do that? The Bible tells us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Do you believe that? Or do you think that as the culture changes so does the Word of God change and it should now read “faith comes by seeing, and seeing by a multimedia presentation that includes a Spiderman clip”? The Bible tells us that we should “not be conformed to this world.” I suppose that in today’s culture we are to add a caveat to that which says “unless the world comes up with a great marketing idea.” We’re told in First Corinthians three that it is our responsibility to plant the seed (the Word of God) and water it, but it is God that gives the increase… but I suppose that in today’s culture God needs us (the enlightened) to put in place a merchandising plan to make sure that increase happens effectively.
My point: There is nothing new under the sun; God doesn’t need our ideas on how to do church better. He’s given us His way; it’s laid out wonderfully in His Word, and it works perfectly every time it’s tried… it doesn’t need to be updated to better relate to today’s culture. The only thing we need to relate to is His Word… we certainly don’t need to relate to a culture that is on the fast track to destruction.
Does the way you are doing church glorify God or does it just satisfy your own desire to be popular and feel relevant? If those that you lead look at you and say… if he watches that adulterous housewife show on TV, then I should check it out… then you either need to step down from ministry, or drastically change the cultural mores that you want people to relate to you on. We don’t need leaders who are up to date on the latest reality television shows. We don’t need pastors who understand the latest clothing trends. We don’t need teachers who host Halo video game parties for our young people. We don’t need pastors who look at the prevailing culture of the day and change their church to fit into it; we need pastors who look at today’s abhorrent culture and seek to be used by God to change that culture. People don’t need pastors who relate to them, they need pastors who inspire them.
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