Should we strive at making the gospel understandable to our culture? Of course. But, how far can we go before we are simply striving for relevance in culture? Our church staff goes back and forth with this issue. Contextualization is good. However, striving for relevance is a poor use of energy, because it is the word of God that is relevant and God is the one who ultimately draws people to Himself. More than that, many "searching" people don't end up going to church because they hear the church is cool and want to be entertained. They go to church because they desire an encounter with God or "a place where God is taken seriously." On the other hand, contextualization is important. The gospel must be set forth in "language" that hearers can understand. There are a few blogs that I frequent. Two of them are interacting right now on the issue of contextualization. Phil Johnson starts out his post, "Read (and believe) enough of the trendy books and blogs that talk about missional living, and you'll get the distinct impression that fitting into this world's cultures is vastly more important—and a much more effective evangelistic strategy—than knowing the gospel message and communicating it with boldness, precision, and clarity." Another blog writer, c michael patton, sums up Phill's post, "He says that in contrast to the compromised message of the postmodern Christian, Paul was not scared of offending people because he does not set his standard by how many people respond positively to the message. In fact, as Phil points out, Paul did not win many by his ”contextualized approach.” Phil says, ”That is the biblical approach to ministry. You don’t measure its success or failure by how pleased the crowd is at the end of the meeting.” Patton follows this with some interaction with Johnson's post and offers a helpful and balanced critique. Take a look, pretty helpful. Parchment and Pen -- Pyromaniacs (see Paul and Cutlure).
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