Hello
Emmanuel,
Today’s
topic: culturally relevant ministry
I’m
not into scrapbooking. To be honest, I
don’t get it at all. Lots of glue and
pictures and cutouts are just going to make a big mess. Scrapbooking isn’t the only thing I don’t
get. I don’t get karaoke (I can’t even
spell it right… thank you, spellcheck).
I don’t get passion for music or investing much time in cooking fancy
stuff or woodworking or landscaping or working on cars. One might say I am rather a boring person…. Except
that I do have a few passions. One of
them:
Culturally
Relevant Ministry
I
might be boring, but I really like allowing a church to not be boring. If Emmanuel took after my personality, I
truly think few people would attend.
However, as I spoke about on Sunday, self-awareness is an important
quality in which to take advantage.
Therefore, I put forth energy to stay out of the way and let others
create a non-boring church.
If
the community is ever going to realize that Emmanuel has something to say to
them that matters, they need to see and experience that Emmanuel is going to
offer activities that directly impact their interests. Ministry needs to be culturally relevant. There are many people who like to
scrapbook. And since, to my knowledge,
Scripture does not suggest that scrapbooking is a sin, then let people
scrapbook. People came and hopefully
recognized that Emmanuel wants to matter to them. Emmanuel wants to be relevant to the
community…. Not just the church members.
There
are those who like to do crafts or dress up for Halloween or karaoke or square
dance or see puppet plays or eat or play cards……. Just because I may not get it
doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. On the
contrary, we leaders of the church should be looking for ways to be relevant to
the community even if we don’t understand the community’s interests. As long as we don’t compromise our very basic
(and simple) understanding of God’s expectations of us, then why not go to
great lengths to help the community see that we matter.
Culturally
Relevant Ministry
Being
relevant gets us closer to our purpose for the community. If we matter to the community, the community
will more likely take to heart what we have to say: God loves you. God wants you to be his disciple. Are you willing to love like God wants you to
love?
When
a church is irrelevant, people don’t care what you have to say. But when people spend time in the building
doing what matters to them, they just might start listening to what matters to
us. Why?
Because who isn’t willing to listen to someone who cares about them?
It’s
a basic concept that Jesus used. He went
to the people and spoke on their turf about what mattered to them first,
whether it was healing or religion or family or money. Then after he showed them that they mattered
to him, he spoke up. And for many, he
started mattering to them.
Culturally
Relevant Ministry
I
hope we all understand why we reach out; why we invite; why we welcome. It is because we want God to matter to
everyone possible. So scrapbook away!
God
is Good,
Pastor
Joe
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