What a Dude we Have in Jesus

Here it is, the long-prophesied "serious" post of the week. Let's start a few weeks ago: I was on vacation and decided to rent that Mandy Moore movie "Saved." For those of you who don't know, the movie is about a young girl at an evangelical high school in the US somewhere. This teen gets pregnant during her summer break and spends the school year trying to hide her condition from her militant classmates while clinging to a faith that suddenly makes less sense to her, with predictably hilarious results.

Her school is a "stereotypical" white, American evangelical school. While there are certain aspects that are grossly exaggerated (like when classmates attempt to perform an exorcism on a "depressed" fellow student) one scene sticks out in my mind for its brutal honesty (or at least because it reminds me of some folks I knew as a teen). At the opening chapel for the year the campus pastor/principal of the school comes back-flipping onto stage (to loud funky music), comes up to the microphone and says (I kid you not...)

"Yeah! God is in the house! Let's get our Christ on, let's kick it Jesus style!" To which the congregation goes appropriately wild.

Well. What do you say to that? I sat there feeling quite uncomfortable, because I recognized truth in this (exaggerated) portrayal of our Christian leadership. We are desperately trying to be cool. Our strategy is to attract people in with our hipness, our coolness, our attractiveness - you'll never see an unattractive worship leader on Christian TV. Our leaders, by and large, spend vast amounts of time and energy trying to make us into a "religious" version of the best parts of our society. Here's a quote from "Blue Like Jazz" author Don Miller:

There are many problems with trying to market the gospel of Jesus, not the least of which is that, in itself, it is not a cool or fashionable idea. It isn't supposed to be. It is supposed to be revolutionary. It's for people who are tired of trying to be cool, tired of trying to get the world to redeem them. I attended the Dove Awards recently and was brokenhearted. I saw all these beautiful Christians, wonderful people, with this wonderful, revolutionary message of Jesus, who, instead of saying, "Look, fashion doesn't matter, hip doesn't matter," were saying "World, please accept us, we can be just as hip as you, just as fashionable, only in a religious way."

This is a legitimate concern many people have for the emerging church. Is it something revolutionary, ready to reach out to a broken world and affect change? Or is it just another attempt to live off the "fad of the land?"

I think I'm ready to conclude "both." It seems to me that in the emerging church there are true Christians, ready to try anything to get the timeless, hope-filled message of Christ into a hurting world. I've met several of these people, and I know them to be genuine believers.

I also think that there are many - too many - people jumping onto the emerging bandwagon because it's the next big thing, "where God is really moving" or some other garbage. Because the fact is, God doesn't need the emerging church. If God "needs" anything, it's good and faithful servants. These can be found in the emerging church, in the modern church, in the catholic church, anywhere that there is faith.

This isn't meant to discourage people from "signing up" with the emerging church or whatever. I want people to think - to really think - about where God wants them, and about what God wants them to do, instead of just picking the popular choice. And to pray about it, and to listen for God's leading. If he wants you to be an "emerging Christian," then be the best one possible. If he wants you to stay in your seeker-sensitive mega-church, then do so, and serve him with all your heart there. Instead of trying to be cool, hip, "with it" or what the world would find good in its eyes, let's be relevant, loving, and follow the Micah 6:8 example: "He has shown you, O man, what is good - and what does the LORD require of you? But to Do Justice, and to Love Mercy, and to Walk Humbly with your God."