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Pop Goes the Church 1
By John | May 6, 2008
I have a secret admirer. Stop laughing! I really do. She sends me books and always signs her name ‘Amazon’. I really like her…
This time, she sent me Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens. Tim’s a part of Granger Community Church’s executive leadership team and focuses on blending innovative outreach and discipleship. In Pop Goes the Church, Stevens wants his reader to be able to leverage our culture’s media saturation into opportunities to share the good news of Jesus.
As we tackle this book in pieces, we’ll be able to discuss the challenges and opportunities pop culture brings to the table. Here we go with Chapter 1…
Growing up, Tim was a ‘church’ kid. His church was the typical Midwestern church: conservative, tradition-bound, and comfortable. Through various run-ins with his church’s hierarchy, Tim began to wonder if his church was hindering the communication of the good news of Jesus to the people that needed to hear it.
Is the church really answering questions that anyone is asking?
Is church a worthwhile experience for people who visit?
Tim tells the true story of a woman named Molly who loved her church and was very active in it. She finally got the nerve up to invite a co-worker to church with her. After the experience together, Molly asked her friend what she thought. “Molly, your church sucks!” was the reply. Seeing her church through her friend’s eyes caused Molly to see that the worship service was way too long, the music was very bad, and the message was irrelevant. Coming to this realization is hard - and the fear of this realization keeps many of us from examining our own church experience.
Seeing this repeated over & over & being himself embarrassed to invite anyone to his church ( “Many churches are like restaurants where the service is bad, the atmosphere is uncomfortable, and the food is bad”), Tim sees the necessity of integrating church culture with pop culture. “It’s about turning around, staring your culture straight in the face, and leveraging that culture to reach people for Christ.”
What do you think?
Can the church leverage pop culture to communicate Jesus to people? What does/could that look like?
Topics: Books |
May 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I find this one of the most challenging, but applicable questions in the church today. It’s one my wife and I have actually talked about a couple of times recently. For instance, how much pop culture should I absorb- which movies, tv shows, etc can/should I watch to be up on culture? I want to be relevant, but I don’t want to cross line and put myself in situations where I’m simply using that as a justification to view things I shouldn’t. So where’s the line?
I know some churches had Halo 3 parties for the youth when the game came out. Now you’ve got another Grand Theft Auto coming out. Probably not going to happen right.
We wouldn’t show/watch porn to become knowledgeable about culture, but where do we draw the line then with some of the more provocative shows on the networks. If they give me an eye into culture, that helps me communicate, but . . .
I love diving into this stuff. It’s murky water, but it’s where we live. We love our churches, but we know they seem completely foreign to the culture we meet when we really get outside our walls. How do we get to know that culture, speak in terms it can understand, but not be transformed by it, rather than transforming it.
And of course, as John asks, where do we bring that into church- ooh. Can I mention the tv shows in church, or just allude to them? In a sermon, in a Bible study? Would you like that from a pastor or not? Have you ever done it in church and gotten positive/negative feedback?
May 6th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
First…congrats on the launch of the blog. I try to keep on these as much as I can, but don’t comment much unless something really strikes me, so consider yourself off on the right track. I am struck from the beginning.
I think Dan makes a great point about being engaged in the culture but not consumed by it. I myself find that I am constantly triyng to find a way in order to connect with people where they are. Lets face it, this is what Jesus did right after he called Matthew to be one of his disciples. He goes to his house and eats with his friends. He spends time in the culture and engages it, and then he works on bringing the message that it needs to hear to them. I use as many references to culture that I can in order to make the true biblical point relevant.
Of course, the trick here is not just engageing the culture in order to bring Christ into it. It is engaging all cultures that we encounter. There is a real trick here as pastors. I certainly connect to a post-modern/millenial mindset much better then I do the boomers and builders in my congregation. However, in order to reach all people with the saving message of Jesus Christ I need to be able to reach into each culture with The Truth. This past weekend I ended up using both John Wayne and modern language (Satan is talking smack about you to God) in the same sermon. Amazingly it worked across generations and seemed to resonate with all of them.
Certainly there are dangers and things to look out for when using pop culture in our teaching and preaching. However, we must not avoid it and act like the world is no different then it was 25, 50, 100 years ago or we risk heading the same direction of the amish.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Thanks for the comments guys.
One thing keeps gnawing away at my gut: I don’t think Christians (even those ones who are stuck in their Christian bubble & fight every newcomer who tries to get in to join them or take them out to experience something new) realize how deeply they are personally affected by pop culture. It’s another case of plank-itis…
May 6th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
There’s some interesting truth to that. I know people who avoid the latest tv shows- e.g. Gray’s Anatomy, CSI, etc, but there are definitely elements of pop culture that deeply affect them. They’re still hit by thousands of images- from pop-up ads, to commercials, to billboards. They still have their ipod going, with music on demand. So you can avoid some of what a person might see as “corrupting influences” of pop culture, but still be affected by the less obvious ones- commercialism, fast-food/convenience culture, etc.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
It all sounds thought provoking to me. It will be interesting to see what you do with your knowledge of using our culture to share Christ’s love… we would love to hear about it!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Christians should definitely familiarize themselves with pop culture on some level, not only to be wise as serpents, but also to recognize redeeming aspects of culture (once upon a time, Christians were the ones making all the good art — think Bach and Lucas Cranach).
Nowadays, pop culture can be so transitory — here today, gone tomorrow. Which is why it can be troubling when the church embraces certain aspects of it. Like the “.com” church I pass every day on the way to work. I know they’re trying to be relevant, but I think to myself, will they last longer than the ’90s tech boom?
The church should offer something more permanent, more transcendent. A place where people meet the God of the universe, and where His word is preached and doesn’t return empty. You can’t really top that.