Yesterday, I pointed my blog to an article by Cole NeSmith, the pastor at Status in Orlando. Cole wrote on Relevant Magazine's site about coolness and Christianity. He essentially pointed out that the church errs if it strives for coolness, because what is hip today will not be tomorrow. However, the Church will last forever.
This struck a cord with me, because it has been one of the issues I have been chewing on for a while. Each of us has a certain style of church that we like, from the music to the preaching and kids programming. We tend to search out the church that best fits who we are, and there is nothing wrong with that, provided we are growing in our relationship with Jesus.
But, at times we find churches that, over the course of time, become the cool place to go. Inevitably, the focus of the church can trend away from biblical mission to one of being cool within the culture. We justify such moves by telling ourselves that we are simply being relevant, or trying to reach our culture by using things they're familiar with.
Don't get me wrong. Short of sin, everything in the world is fair game to use in order to bring people to Jesus. But, there is a gray line that exists between being relevant for the sake of mission and relevant for the sake of being cool. In fact, it's so fuzzy that I don't think a church realizes it has crossed the line until it is fully over it, and dug into the mindset of being cool.
Tomorrow, I'll continue with my take on the cool church.
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