So one of our four core values at The Joshua House is what we call “missional journey.”  It means several things but specifically one of the things it means is how we want to be a church that has a more radical engagement with culture, specifically postmodern culture, for the sake of the gospel.  Many of you know that I have a real bone to pick with this and will continue to sound like a broken record until I convince as many of you as possible for its need.  Fortunately I don’t have to make the case on my own feeble insights alone but can let scripture speak for me instead.  Two Sundays ago as part of our walk through Acts we looked at Acts 10 and had a great discussion on the whole issue of the clean vs. unclean things in our culture and even in our churches?  I sent out a Mark Driscoll (http://www.marshillchurch.org) video related to the issue and thought that would be that, until I started reading Acts 11 for this Sunday and saw the whole issue being brought up all over again.

So as I reminisced about my own conversion experience(s) I found myself asking a question:  Would I have become a Christian if the gospel hadn’t been communicated to me in a culturally relevant way?  And that is the question I leave with you here.  Note – As a Christian who believes in predestination and the sovereignty of God (because the scriptures seem to say so) I do believe I would have become a Christian regardless, but who knows when, maybe not until I was ninety years old (I hope I live that long), dying on my death bed.  And that I believe, would have been a tragedy.  So here’s my question and my rant:

Would I have become a Christian at Camp Qwanoes (a Christian camp on Vancouver Island) when I was thirteen if:

  • They sang nothing but hymns on an old pipe organ instead of having a band with electric guitars and congo drums singing rock ballad worship songs by Michael W. Smith, Rich Mullins and Keith Green?  (By the way, the point here is not so much the hymns as the pipe organ…many hymns are pretty cool if done well)
  • They had counselors that thought most Hollywood movies were of the devil, guitars and drums were demon possessed and skateboarding was what lost heathens did, instead of counselors who liked movies that I liked such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws and Rambo, were musicians in rock bands and taught me how to do ollies on my Powell Peralta skateboard?
  • They held the camp inside a big, square, pastel painted building with bare, white walls and fluorescent lighting instead of in the wild forests of B.C., situated along an oceanside beach, full of cool rustic cabins, eating dinner with the setting sun on a deck overlooking an inlet and then later sharing and singing songs around a huge bon fire outside under the majestic star-lit night sky?
  • They played games like “guess which bible translation is evil,” “what’s your favorite Gaither song” or “pin the cross on the sinner” instead of games like capture the flag, surf the soapy slip and slide, how many people can we fit into a Mazda hatchback and midnight pillow fights in the field?

I know I take some liberties and make some major exaggerations but if that’s what cultural relevancy looked like for me as a teenager in the late 80’s at a Christian camp what should it look like today in 2007 in an increasingly postmodern world for adults/families in our churches?