Being relevant... or not
"Relevant works well when the world is your friend."
A line I heard recently on a video "podcast." The Episcopal priest was explaining to the Evangelical Free Church podcaster why his church continues to grow by about 10% year over year. 'Yeah, we're non-relavent."
This is something I've been thinking about for several years, going back beyond when I was the Bishop's Missioner for a project to understand the confluence of rising generations, changing culture, and Christian faith development.
I have no desire to present to the greater culture something that they find "relevant." Our church has been trying to do this for a few decades, with little success. Rather, I would like to present this ancient Faith in ways that "resonate" with younger people's spiritual/religions or existisitential what-does-all-of-this-mean longings.
In the place and time we live, the greater majority of younger people are far beyond anything that smacks of an engrained "culture Christianity." They know little or nothing - not their fault at their point of inquiry, in that point of inner stirring for something more. When they do decide to seek after something "spiritual" or even "religious," they are for the most part a blank slate (aside from the influence of current media, which is lame at best and mostly awful).
So, what they tend to seek is something different from the prevailing culture ("not relevant"), something grounded, something that endures, something that continues in its connectedness to deep resonence, something that allows them to wrestle honestly with the great questions of life and meaning and purpose. They seek it in something that isn't afraid to be who they are and have no qualms about proclaiming what they believe. Something that engages them honestly, respectfully, forthrightly.
This is what we strove for in the Imago Dei Initiative back then, and what we continue to strive for, always.
