What Makes Church Relevant?
Many christians have presented a number of theories, which have attempted to answer this question. It has been a question that has left many unbelievers feeling uninterested, unmoved and indifferent. I do not want to 'theologically' attempt to investigate this matter, or solve the reason why church attendance is at a constant decline. A European social study (published in 2002) put the UK at the 4th lowest rate of Church attendance in Europe, where The Guardian published that the number of people who say they have no religion jumped from 15% in the 2001 census to 25% in 2011. I do not note this to make the church feel as though their influences on their communities are unavailing, I merely want to raise some important truths and points of interest, which might help us as a body of Christians to feel motivated, inspired and affected to change and reshape what we have come to know as church today in the western world.
Church cannot be made relevant by making it ‘cool’ or the ‘everybody’s doing it thing’, which is widely popular and endorsed in the modern day church for the wider attraction of worldly stipulation. These guarantees are easily affected and altered by situation and time.
Church is made relevant by making God relevant, first and foremost.
It’s not a social club, a power hungry platform, nor a means to climb up the popularity ladder, for these are the precise superficialities that Jesus of the gospel spoke against. We only have to look at some of His conversations with the Pharisees to see this. The soil is the human heart, where we must continually examine ourselves to make sure that we are cultivating the seed of God’s Word in our hearts. We are created to be one single unit, a body constructed from many parts, working together to generate the basis for where love can be found. Church was intended to be a place where God could be positioned at the centre, and who is God? "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” In doing so, we can collectively, and independently receive fulfilment, security, purpose and most importantly love. 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Love is a reflection on God’s divine essence. We should in this case, not conduct church gatherings without considering how we have enabled the love of Christ to influence how we speak, relate, and interact with one another. Not just with familiar faces, but with those who feel unreachable, unseen and unheard. Individuals, whose only experience of a religious setting has been one of judgment, misunderstanding, loneliness and coordinated submission; victims of the conversion patrol, a product of the convert crash course, having no real solid foundation as to fully understand what faith looks like in practice or application.
So are all churches getting it wrong?
Certainly not, even the apostles were dealing with significant issues within the church. But this is not a matter of right or wrong, but something of much greater proportion. How can we as a collective group of Christians seek to captivate the lost? Well, before the lost are saved, we have to seek them! Seek meaning attempting to find, find meaning, to come upon or discover by searching or making a deliberate effort.
Jesus didn’t have to entice his followers with flashy stage lights, or an attractive worship leader with an acoustic guitar, nor gave an obligated smile and forced hug, nor did he pressure his listeners into retweeting his messages on love and forgiveness, nor did he promise his followers a life of wealth and fortune, inclusive of a Lamborghini, private jet and complimentary face lift.
He simply WAS the true example of love, where through His demonstration of faith in action, caused generations of believers to save the lost and even die in His name.
He requires us to “Take up our cross and follow Him"... "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matthew 16:24-25). This was referring to a believers responsibility to let go of of selfish ambition, and rather than getting personal validation from worldly things, we alternatively find our true calling by following Jesus Christ. This is what the disciples did, and this is what we are called to do in many respects.
So in the context of church, we can begin to see the full picture. Jesus came to save the lost, and He chose the most unlikely and ordinary souls to change, effect and inspire generations. The moment we put God centre is the point where God is given the opportunity to make "His kingdom come, and will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).
I'm not a pastor or a professor of theology, far from it. But I have had a personal relationship with God long enough to know that one of the most fundamental responsibilities we as Christians have is to demonstrate love, and by doing this not only in a church setting but in our daily encounters with others, we can begin to make God relevant. It is not something we can force or obtain, but making church relevant is dependent on our ability to show less of us and more of God.
