One final concept that noone has yet to approach is the idea of looking at the *entire* worship service and relating it to relevance. Not just looking at the music style, or the screen/metaphorical content… I’m talking about asking questions like “is listening to a live speaker/pastor talk for 15-30 minutes really culturally impacting?” or “do we even really need to invest our resources in a church building?” or “is the best way to build up our fellow believer to do so only at a structured Sunday gathering?”… I could ask a thousand more… but are you?

How all of this is done really depends on the individual church, because, as we all know, none of them are exactly the same. The one thing that is imperative is that our worship, whether it is singing, praying, or in whatever else we do, it is intentional, real and heartfelt. If we strive to be real in our expression of worship, then those who are not believers with see it, that is the best testamony any of us can ask for.

There is a place for ‘seeker services’ for the uninitiated, where the basic Gospel is presented and a variety of presentations made to suit the occasion. At that type of service there would be minimum participation required from the audience: most of the singing would be presented by group or choir and the style of course relevant to your target audience (and to the home church).

The contemporary view that you take non-believers to church to hear the Gospel is, I believe, a far cry from the practice of the early church. Casual observers weren’t game to join the believer’s in the early days because of the power manifested amongst them (Acts 5:12-16). The number increased because the believers did the work of witness and evangelizing whilst at their every day activities, e.g. on the streets, in the market place, nattering to the neighbours, etc. The new converts THEN joined the church.

I think we do a great dis-service to the church body when trying to incorporate non-believers into a believers’ service of worship. The service then becomes an ‘outreach’ and does not provide the necessary meat for the body, see 1 Cor 2:14. Oil and water do not mix (pun intended).

The study about teens and traditional music is food for thought, but makes us wonder how the question was asked. If we were asked if we’d rather listen to polished traditional church music, or poorly performed less than garage band quality contemporary music, we’d go for the traditional style too. In many churches there is a history of excellence when it comes to organ, or choral music. Most pipe organists are highly skilled at their craft.

Unfortunately many attempts to perform “contemporary” music fall very short of where the culture is. If bands in churches sounded like the music downloaded every day on itunes, the study might have much different results. That why we put the bit in there about “contemporary 70?Äôs worship with acoustic guitars and ?ÄúKum By Yah,?Äù contemporary 80?Äôs with lots of synthesizers, and contemporary 90?Äôs with that familiar grunge sound might need updating”

Lastly, we’re not saying that there is no power in classic architecture and art. Those things are awe inspiring and can be very meaningful. Fine art, Gothic cathedrals, and other more traditional forms can have meaning if there is some kind of connection. If you’re companions on the bike trip were teens with a lifelong faith experience, they would see God in these forms, where someone outside the church might not react the same way.

Being contemporary can be engaging and inspiring for believers, but is even more important for non-believers who are searching for God without the knowledge and experience of “Christianese”. They come in with cultural communication perspectives, and if they hear the the gospel presented in that language, there is a much better chance they’ll find a connection.

Another comment: many of the teens in my church listen to the classical music station all day long and they love the great choral works of the past. Go figure. Along the same lines, did you see the PhD thesis that surveyed the worship preferences of almost 500 teens across all denominational lines and found that they preferred “traditional” church music? I don’t have the citation at hand. I believe it came out of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Sorry.

In our desire to be contemporary we might find a healthy balance in the book, Prophetic Untimeliness. I read it some years ago.

Finally, a few years ago I took some teens on an 800-mile bicycle camping trip to Canada (from Ohio). Out in the middle of the prairie we found a very large and ornate Catholic church building. It was open and we went in. Immediately a hush fell on the teens. Afterward I asked them to explain to me what had happened in there. To sum up, they said, “Surrounded by all that beautiful art and the huge size you couldn’t help but be in awe of God.”

Thanks for your good work, guys!

Those movies have worked as metaphors for faith for many. They are also films not worship experiences, and create fandoms that are loved by a few to the point of a cult, but ignored by most. While cultural references are helpful for developing metaphors for discussions of faith, as much as possible we try to look to the Bible for our models for ministry.

The goal is not to make things comfortable. The goal is to move people toward the Cross, meeting them with symbols they understand for the sake of a Gospel that is in many ways not understandable.

A Catholic-Jewish couple recently joined my (Len’s) church. The Jewish wife sat in a “basics of the faith” class last week and said, “I don’t understand… God, Jesus… are they different? The same?” We got to reply, “We don’t fully understand either!” And a dialogue happened. (See Mark 4!) She doesn’t understand the theology yet, but she’s coming to church, because she can understand our everyday metaphors, and she likes the community. They had tried the husband’s Catholic faith for a while, but she couldn’t handle it, saying it was too esoteric. But they like our church. It has given her an entry point. Now, our challenge is to move her toward the cross–to disciple her.

“The power of the strange”? The mystery needs to come in the power of the risen Lord, not in the mystery of how we express our faith.

As you know, we have begun the shift away from modernism, where progress was king and ‘the new’ was worshipped and the historic was shunned. Now we encounter the embracing of our roots, the hunger for the mysterious, the acceptance and the power of the strange. In fact, if the ‘strange’ adapts too much to the ‘familiar’, it is seen as weak and impotent.

The irony is that the very strategy “to make things comfortable in the hopes to connect” is no longer contemporary!