How do you most effectively bridge the gap between the world of the Bible and modern day?

This is a great question and one that can pose difficulty on many levels. I think that there is a risk to interpret the need to be culturally relevant as one who is fully engaged in the culture and is not separated “not beneficial” or “garbage in, garbage out” type principles. I truly feel that we as preachers have to walk a thin line in setting the example here and making sure that we are relevant, yet we are fully of Christ not this world.

There are several things that we do to make sure that we can stay relevant and bridge the gap between the Bible and our students culture. I would suggest a book by Leonard Sweet called, Postmodern Pilgrim. This is not one of those books on Postmodernism that many of you are already going I know enough about this. Rather, this is the only book of his that I think has done a good job of giving us the practical methodology that can help us engage culture and reach an audience effectively with the Gospel message. Here are the things that we do to make sure we are connecting well wit our students.

1. Student involvement – we have a programming team that is comprised of students and adults who are leading in the worship area of our ministry. They come together once a month to discuss the upcoming series that is at least four weeks away. When we start sharing where we are headed they start giving ideas that help us communicate the message better and to connect to their lives better.

2. Time studying culture – none of us have time to be true students of culture, but we do have time to make sure we are aware of what is happening in our culture. For example if you are working with anyone under the age of 45 and did not mention that American Idol sang, Shout to the Lord the Sunday after you missed a great opportunity to connect with your audience. There are plenty of great resources out there on the web for this information without you spending a lot of time doing it. One great site is called plugrug.com where individuals like you and I can post our findings and share them with one another, a lot like dig. If you have any sites you watch I would be interested in them.

3. Social Awareness – we try to do something every semester that connects our students to the world at large. Either through buying shoes (Tom’s Shoes) or doing a series of shows to sponsor, she wrote love on her arms. We have to let the world know that we are here as a church and we should be reaching out to the community to share the gospel message and to the world at large.

With the harsh reality that for many of us staying in touch with culture can be difficult and often very time consuming, we have to find other ways to get this information. It is important.

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