I have been thinking about this topic for a couple of months and think that I might be able to articulate it, you might need to give me some grace. In every era of Church History, there have been distinguishing marks of transition and change in the way that we worship God, identify ourselves, and are identified by those outside the faith. Think about it, the way people viewed Christians just a short few decades ago is a bit different than they might today. This is one of the reasons that we need people like Terry Johnson and Brian Jackson (in my opinion) who can find the pulse of our culture and seek for strategic ways to communicate the Gospel to them. There are ways to take contextualizing the Gospel to extremes. Sometimes it is easy to get off-centered, and be in love with doing “something new” than serving Jesus. The most severe case of this would be idolatry in my mind, because we are worshipping the idea of doing something new, and not our Lord. I recently had a great discussion with some friends in Virginia Beach about some things we were seeing in the church today. We all had experienced worship settings where things seemed forced, because that certain style of Christianity is “in” right now. The assumption is that we have to embrace this expression of Christianity because we don’t want to be “behind the times.” A few things I’ve noticed: -Black Frames: Everyone started getting black framed glasses after Rob Bell broke into the scene. Not only that, people started preaching in a higher-pitched intellectual tone as well. I think Rob Bell is prolific and brings so much to the table. But, I don’t know if I am ready to sign up with those that claim that are “Saved by the (Rob) Bell Generation.” I even heard someone claim that Velvet Elvis was as inspirational as the Bible (yikes!). If this is you, if you read the back of the book, Rob Bell even claims that “Jesus has already spoken, the rest is just commentary, right.” – Dems: I have sensed a large amount of Christians who are jumping into the Democratic affiliation politically (note: I am not advocating for any political party, It’s beautiful that we can be Christian and stand in different places politically). However, why is this all happening? Are Democrats pushing all the right buttons this time around, or is it in style for this election? I imagine that votes will be casted for Barak Obama because he represents something so different to a Presidential race (race, experience, youth, form of politics, hope-centered message, etc.), or maybe because his name sounds cool. – Grace is more of a convenience. Think about it, there are fewer holiness sermons preached in our times. The message is offensive. Whomever preaches them is accused of being legalistic. It is harder to tell a Christian apart from another these days, because if we are forgiven, it doesn’t matter what we do. This appears to be a prevalent assumption among the young adult generation. In my mind, this whole discussion comes down to the nature of transformation. When we make changes in our lives, is it out of a stylish form of Christianity, or is it God performing His perfecting work within us? We need to ask, what is empowering the changes within me? Jesus brought a new teaching, but the core of it wasn’t stylish (forsake everything and follow me isn’t an easy pill to swallow). However, those around Him claimed He was teaching a new teaching, and that it was with authority (Mark 1:27-28)! His message was transformational! A message we need in this hour! Let’s be transformed and not conformed to different styles of Christianity!
