Are you relevant and reverant?

I love American Idol. Actually, I am an American Idol junky!!!! I never miss an episode and, thanks to a DVR, I might watch one twice, if it was a really great show. I love the growth process of talented people as they strive to become a great singer, performer and star. It is ever so obvious that some have it and some don’t. Over and over I have heard Simon, my favorite judge, explain that each contestant must take the older song from whatever genre is chosen, and make it their own rendition AND make it relevant, fresh and current, if they are to succeed. The singers seem to really struggle with this. They know enough not to change the words, but they often just do a repeat performance of the original and it seems old fashioned, at best.

As I thought about how those singers struggle to take the old and make it real and relevant, I realized that we have the same struggle in the church today. In our fight to make scripture come alive, we have gotten confused and the lost our reverence for the Word. Where an Idol participant would never change the words to the song, just the arrangement in order to package it freshly, the Christian culture of the late 20th and early 21st century has wanted to change not only the words but the meaning! Our culture has demanded a change and we are giving them the wrong one.

As we look back over the decades of music, we see that Elvis produced music on 45’s, one song at a time. As a little girl, I listened to my favorite tunes on 45’s. Then, along came an album, multiple songs, half on side 1 and then half on side 2. My heart throb was Bobby Sherman; the album cover and poster hung on my wall. Many of us still have stacks of albums and an old worn out record player that we are not quite sure what to do with. Next, in the line of musical applications came the 8 track tape player. I guess it was necessary to move us forward, but was an awkward season at best. It was such a short season that I never even owned one. Cassettes were the next move. Now, cassettes hung around for a while. I have dozens of cassettes stuffed in a drawer and a great Sony Walkman that played those cassettes as I walked. The player though, outlasted the generation of the cassette and we moved onto CD’s. A decade later and mp3’s became the rage. I am on my third mp3 player. I hope we stay here a while because I love the simplicity of downloading music and putting my headphones into my small iPod and off I go. I have 1000’s of songs at my fingertips. I am only 47 years old and I have gone through all of these musical application changes. I can still hear the oldies exactly as they were and I can hear everything new and current also. But, what if I was resistant to the change? I would be lost in the cassette world and have to drive an old car because there are no longer cassette players in the new ones.

For some churches today, they seem to have gotten stuck in the 8 track tape era but in order be relevant they have simply changed the words to the Bible and the meaning. This is not relevance this is irreverence. It is about the freedom to change the packaging to make it relevant, but having integrity and respect for the artist, God, keeping it reverent. We can change the application to keep it fresh and current for this new generation. We can use power point, mp3 players, skits, drama, and even dance. God will not be offended by our fresh changes. What offends God is when we are irreverent to the word and we change the meaning and the words. We can never change the intent of the Word because the climate and the culture are shifting.

We would never do this with an Elvis song. "You Ain't nothing but a Hounddog" will always be "You ain't nothing but a Hounddog". We might speed it up or slow it down but we would never change the words. We might listen to it still in album form or on the current mp3 player but Elvis is Elvis and no amount of application change will change his music. So, why then are we intent on changing the words and meaning of the Word of God to meet our culture and resistant to fresh delivery means. We might consider dance irreverent to express our worship but yet we will be open to tolerance for sin saying the Word was written 2000 years ago and is not the same today.
HOW WRONG WE ARE!!!! As the church we need to get up to speed and become fresh and relevant in our technology and meet this generation where they are at. We need to freshen our application process to meet each man, woman, child and teen where they are at without ever compromising the integrity of GODS’ WORD!!!! Make it relevant but keep it reverent!

Jane Wolfe