Tuesdays with Morris

So, I’m currently listening to a guy talk about how we need to grow the church through breeding. And, he’s serious! He basically said that we don’t have kids in the church today because we aren’t making kids. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name.

When he started, I was sort of with him…he talked about recognizing when things aren’t working…making changes…being relevant and engaging the culture around us. Then, he went into the whole “we need to out-breed the culture around us.” He was saying that we need to understand the Scripture and embrace the call to “be fruitful and multiply.” This guy’s definitely fruitful…I’d say he’s bananas. (hahaha…that was stupid funny).

This is great! Instead of actually serving, reaching out, and talking to people that don’t know Jesus, I can’t just ignore them and focus on making babies! Of course, I’m being sarcastic.

Anyway, this also got me thinking about the whole issue of being relevant. I mean, breeding evangelist guy was talking about the idea of being relevant…and breeding is a fairly relevant topic. Back to the issue of being relevant…

I used to go on and on and on about the importance of being relevant. I think it is important to be in tune and aware of the world around us. However, I also think, at times, the Church goes over-board in it’s attempts to be relevant. I hear some of the gimmicks (and let’s face it…they are gimmicks) that churches are using to spark interest and I just think, “what’s that got to do with Jesus???” Now, most of those attempting to be relevant through catchy gimmicks would say, “We’re just doing whatever it takes to win people to Jesus.” And, there’s some merit to this because those who do it well have been very effective.

But, for me, as the days, months, and years go by…I find myself not worrying about being “relevant”. Instead, I focus my efforts on being honest, open, vulnerable, transparent, straight-forward, and real. I believe it’s much better to attain the label of “authentic” rather than “relevant.” I also believe that one can’t be all that “relevant” if he/she isn’t “authentic.” Lot’s of church leaders are out there being “relevant” without being “authentic”…they put on a good show…they hide their true identities. But, it will all catch up with them some day. So, I believe we might as well get into the business of being real today.

So, back to evangelistic breeding…If two Christians have a baby, is the baby automatically a Christian? Or does the child have a mind of it’s own? Will the child automatically desire to be a Christ-follower? Or will the child seek out their own understanding? If the child grows up to be Buddhist, gay, a Democrat (or member of the Green Party…which is far worse than a Democrat, but not very effective due to the small number of Green Party members and candidates), did the parents do a bad job of evangelistic breeding? And, does the old saying of “we’re just responsible for planting the seeds” work in this situation? I mean, that’s just dirty.

I think we shouldn’t focus on breeding. Instead, we should focus on serving. Maybe if we put our faith into action others would actually want a part of it.