Bruce had a little series a while ago that discussed distinctives of our little church. Another distinctive came up over lunch with some college students I thought I should share. The college student told me what makes us cool is the fact that we are not cool. At first my heart was shattered because my life pursuit is to be cool and a cool Christian would have to go to a cool church. Thankfully the college student saw the abyss of despair this comment sent me down and explained. What he (and other college students with him) liked about our church was that we do not do anything to attract people with bells and whistles. I was taken back and encouraged that they just loved how we preached the gospel plainly and clearly. What people like about us is that we are not trying to be cool, hip, trendy, or anything of the sort.

We are trying to stay faithful. What this college student was saying reminded me of the great prophet Huey Lewis, “its hip to be square.” WOW, we are clearly not cool, we cited Huey Lewis on our blog. There are all types of seeker-sensitive churches that are organizing their services and outreach to target certain ages and types of folk. This is a trend that has been around for some time and is simply being modified by the second generation that are just doing it cooler than their fathers. The goal is to show the church is hip. I am pleased they are preaching the gospel faithfully to these types, I am just not sure if a church should remodel itself to appeal to a particular type of fellow. Theologically, the church is made up of all types. We are set and sturdy on preaching Christ and him alone. The cleverness/wisdom of man, well, I hope we are not distracted by it in attempts to be cool. I also am not assuming we are the only “not-so-cool” church in town.

Of course this opens the whole big issue of how are we related to a culture, how is the gospel suppose to be “cultural.” Let me get on a hobby-horse. I am not a fan of the phrase “incarnational ministry” as a reference to our attempts of proclaiming the kingdom in the world. The incarnation is God breaking into history, time, the created order, and even death taking upon himself all that is foreign to him in order to redeem it. When we are taking the gospel into an art gallery, fair, bar, coffee shop, etc we are not incarnating ourselves or the gospel. We are doing the things we like to do and hoping to be light their. Calling it incarnational takes away from the unique person and position of Christ who alone is incarnate and over exalts someone who is simply engaging culture the way the church has always intended. It is called evangelism.

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