emerging church style sheets [3]

Thirdly I just had to include this extract because it was so helpful and inspiring to me. "An Emergent definition of relevance, modulated by resistance, might run something like this: relevance means listening before speaking; relevance means interpreting the culture to itself by noting the ways in which certain cultural productions gesture toward a transcendent grace and beauty; relevance means being ready to give an account for the hope that we have and being in places where someone might actually ask; relevance means believing that we might learn something from those who are most unlike us; relevance means not so much translating the church’s language to the culture as translating the culture’s language back to the church; relevance means making theological sense of the depth that people discover in the oddest places of ordinary living and then using that experience to draw them to the source of that depth (Augustine seems to imply such a move in his reflections on beauty and transience in his Confessions). Relevance might simply mean wanting to understand why so many young people have said that attending U2’s Elevation Tour and hearing Bono close the show with choruses of “Hallelujah” was like being in worship (but a whole lot better)."
It certainly expresses well what I think I have been trying to do in my involvement in alt.worship: to make connections that allow us to pray our culture and in so doing the hope is that people who pray our culture in a 'church' setting will pray it in everyday life too and that everyday life will become increasingly sacramental. The missional angle on this is that when life becomes sacramental to us we will evangelise without effort or without being under orders to do so; it will be simply our way of relating and it will make sense and be spiritually attractive to others. We make use of our cultural artefacts in worship not to make the church relevant to the culture but to equip Christians to pray our culture and so make Christians relevant to their neighbours in their culture.

I certainly think that part of the task of learning to pray our culture is to identify the points of resistance. A big theme for me has been to counter-claim and reclaim loyalty from brands to Christ in worship and to subvert the mindscape of advertising in our worship. I've not done this as much or as fully as I would like but I think it is a major task. A church that ignores advertising and brand-building is leaving its members prey to the Powers of this dark world.
the Christian Century