Relevance or Contextualization?

When Richard Niebuhr wrote his classic book Christ and Culture, he addressed the variety of ways the church has dealt with ministering within a given culture. Since then the debate has continued (See Revisiting Christ and Culture by D.A. Carson).

As the world is rapidly changing and becoming increasingly postmodern the church must continually address this issue. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”. Some have taken this verse as a defense against change in the church. However, the verse refers to the character of Christ that is unchanging not his actions. His actions will always align with his character but he is not static. He is always surprising us with his actions and is unpredictable and unassuming; just read the disciples encounters with him for examples. He cannot be put in a box! His character and nature show us that the content of the gospel is unchanging while the methods of sharing that gospel adapt according to context. Many people have confused relevance with context. Some have assumed that we need to make the gospel relevant to a 21st Century world. I prefer the concept of contextualization over relevance. Relevance often has to do with hipster Christianity (See Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide by Brett McCraken), being cool in order to connect with the world. We do not need to make Jesus and Christianity cool! For many, the gospel is offensive and coolness seems to minimize Christ’s radical call to follow Him at any cost. Relevance was at the heart of the seeker movement which got rid of symbols such as the cross and used inoffensive music and sermons to draw the masses while in the gospels Jesus was thinning out the masses to find the truly committed.
Contextualization on the other hand is both biblical and missional. Contextualization is when you take into account the context in which you do missions and ministry. Thus, for Crestmont, our immediate context is the city of Burleson. Contextualization is how the church does mission. For example, if our context was Tanzania, Africa we would need to understand the culture, customs, language (at least have an interpreter) of the people we wanted to reach. The same goes for Burleson! When we discover that the demographic is mostly middle class families with young children we adjust our ministry to that context. That means our music and messages are methods to communicate the unchanging gospel in a way that people in Burleson can understand. Relevance leads us to dumb down the gospel to make it appealing while contextualization provides us a methodology to communicate the gospel without compromise. Relevance can lead to entertainment, consumerism and pragmatism while contextualization can make disciples. You can’t offend people with the gospel if they don’t understand what you’re saying. Have you ever wondered why there are four gospels in the New Testament telling us the story of Jesus life? It is because each gospel was written for a specific audience. The gospels themselves are an example of contextualization. Then there is Paul on Mars Hill quoting the poets of his day, the equivalent being a quote from a current pop star. Paul was not trying to show the Mars Hill hipsters how cool and relevant he was, he was using culture as a launching pad for the gospel.
That’s why change is necessary in the church. We must be willing, for the sake of the mission to change as the culture changes. Music must change (every song was new at some point!), styles must change, ministries must change, communication methods must change, but never for change sake. We must always avoid worldliness and consumer Christianity while at the same time becoming all things to all people so that by all means we might win some (1 Co. 9:22).