THE CELTIC APPROACH: Part 2

Sounds like I need to read some Os Guiness too! (regarding the idolatry of relevance) And since my last entry, I’ve gotten into the first few pages of Hunter’s Celtic Way of Evangelism. I’ve yet to read anything from Hunter that I haven’t enjoyed...of course, I’ve only read 3 of ???? how many! Radical Outreach is next on the list from Hunter. He’ll be visiting our campus next month for a few lectures so I look forward to a little dialogue with him (or monologue at the very leastJ).

So....where was I? Something about relevance...Celtic Christianity...oh yeah... it’s all coming back to me. My brother also chimed in with a comment and got me thinking about aspects of culture. One of the ways in which the light has “dawned” in my journey is the realization that we are not calling individuals to an alternative culture. I feel like that’s what we’ve been trying to do...especially in my experience with youth ministry over the past 10-11 years. We attempt to convert people to this alternative culture of Christ and forsake their previous culture. Although there are some pieces of that process which ring true...I think the mistake has been to create a sub-culture of Christianity (especially suburban Christianity) which begins to substantially lose relevance to the contemporary culture. I prefer the idea that the “God Life” is more about allowing the person and truth of Christ to infiltrate one’s natural/native cultural environment. Much like the Roman method of evangelization, I find our methods of church and evangelism today are demanding in the wrong ways. Some of those demands include programming, attendance, dress code, Christianese, cultural-suicide, etc. The demands we need to be more concerned with are found in Matthew 28 and other such missional statements. Just as in the Roman missions, people are thought to be evangelized today if they’re attending all the right services and programs in the church and using the right language and not smoking or drinking. The missionaries/monastics from Rome thought they were successful if the community was brought into conformity with the Roman way of doing church and if the “barbarians” had reached a certain level of civilization. So within a few generations, Christianity had devolved into a purely religious, political, and social endeavor...having little impact on the lives of its “adherents.”

My blood pressure is rising a bit...so we’ll break here for more comment!