When looking over the landscape of the American evangelical church, one can quickly see a relatively new breed of churches in existence. Many of them are not tied to a particular denomination, and have sleek, modern looking buildings and decor. They seek to be non-conventional in almost every thing they do because the old way is outdated and irrelevant. Over all of their unique activites, they place an umbrella called “relevance”. They wish to appeal to the modern culture’s current fancies by reinventing the image of church. However, some of these churches miss the point of the duty of the church and the power of the Gospel of Christ, in all its solitary glory.

While the spectrum for these churches is quite large, one common thread runs through them all, and it is a thread that they outwardly and proudly display. This is the thread of “relevance”. When a church invokes this title as a part of their mission, one can usually assume certain characteristics to be found of the church. To these churches, being relevant is way more than just the act of avoiding being irrelevant. No, the word encompasses a new, somewhat revolutionary way of “doing church”. This almost obsessive desire to be relevant effects everything from the music, the preaching, the atmosphere, even the decor of the building. One local church writes in its values section of their website that:

“Just because a program or ministry reached the unchurched yesterday doesn’t mean it is effective today. We believe to win the lost we must be willing to continually change our methods but not the message.”

That quote pretty much sums up the mindset behind the “relevance movement” as I call it. According to it, we as a church, must look over the present society, and adapt our church doings to reflect what the culture desires. In other words, we must market the Gospel to appeal to our audience if we wish to have any hope of successful evangelism. The church previously quoted goes on to say:

“To win the unchurched we believe we must present the Gospel of Jesus Christ in fresh, creative ways (illustrated messages, dramas, video, etc.)”

By now, I hope that some of you are beginning to see some of the errors of this thinking. Churches that operate under beliefs such as those previously quoted are allowing the ever-changing culture (i.e. the world) to dictate the way they function. This is a dangerous thing to do considering that the world is majorly made up of lost people in bondage to their sinful nature. This is not what to Bible wants the Church to be influenced by (Romans 12:2). Also, consider some of the implications behind those quotes. According to the quotes, the power of the Gospel is not in the Gospel itself, but in the packaging of it. As I said before, some of these churches build their existence on the mission to be attractive to the culture in order to draw them through their doors. This mindset doubts the power of both the preaching of the true Gospel and the ordinary means of grace outlined to us by God in His Word. The culture doesn’t want verse-by-verse, expository preaching of the Bible, they want “5 Steps to have a better…”. So following the cultures desires, the church becomes Dr. Phil with a few Bible verses; and this is just what these churches “preach”. Scripture gives us a different picture on how the church should deal with society.

In the first chapter of Romans, the Holy Spirit, through Paul, tells us that in the Gospel, the power of God for salvation and a righteousness for believers is found. In 1 Corinthians 15:2, Paul again tells us that we are saved through the preaching of the Gospel. That is how God has ordained for His elect to be brought to Him. The Great Commission tells us simply to teach what Jesus taught, and God will do the rest. We don’t have to strategize a bunch of bells and whistles as bait to unbelievers. For it is not by our doing that God’s sheep are drawn to Him. 1 Corinthians 1:17 puts it perfectly:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

The Gospel gets watered down when it has to go through the filter of what’s relevant to the culture. It is a paradox when it comes to this; while there is nothing more relevant in the universe to any culture of any time than the Gospel, unregenerate man will view the Gospel as the least relevant thing in the universe. God must first open the eyes of the unbeliever before he can see his need for the salvation that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And He does this through the Gospel alone.