It’s been said that there’s a sudden resurgence in young people flocking to traditional forms of Christian worship. This is often attributed to a growing distaste for the current state of the clown culture, its absence of objectivity, and its relativising of truth.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many of our “contemporary” evangelical churches, which have only seen numbers decline in recent years.
Many evangelical churches thought themselves shrewd, believing if they could borrow from the culture they could attract the children of the culture. They modernised their churches. They “re-envisioned” their services. They rewrote their hymnals. They abandoned their historic buildings and adopted “contemporary” methods of meeting together.
What they failed to consider was the fact that the culture they were trying to “redeem” was on a rapid downward trajectory. They didn’t anticipate how quickly the world they sought to emulate would descend to such depths, becoming utterly repulsive to many within just a few decades.
As a result, we’ve seen countless worldlings abandon the sinking ship of modern culture. They no longer want to be a part of the clown show. They didn’t realise where it was headed. Now they do, they want out. They don’t want a world without borders, limits, and definitions. They don’t want safe spaces, soft talk, and self-censorship. They want a world where right and wrong, left and right, black and white can be objectively defined, regardless of who it might offend.
But they aren’t likely to seek refuge in the watered-down, effeminate, and “contemporary” worship of modern evangelical churches. To many, these are compromised and repugnant reminders of what they’re trying to escape.
Instead, they’re gravitating toward the most seemingly traditional forms of Christianity. Although it’s no measure of what’s true, in their minds, the older it aesthetically appears, the more historically grounded, and the more timeless the truth.
In their efforts to appear “relevant,” evangelicals undermined their own message. They unwittingly told the world their message couldn’t stand on its own merit. By doing so, they told the world their message wasn’t relevant at all.
In trying to disconnect themselves from history, too many churches ended up disconnecting themselves from people. But people are the product of their history. They are the fruit of their heritage.
Now that we’re seeing something of a cultural shift emerge, they’ll find it has the exact opposite effect. Instead of drawing people in, their efforts to appear “relevant” will push people away.
When people seek truth, they look for a truth that has stood the test of time. Truth doesn’t change with culture; it should change the culture. Contemporary evangelicals failed to change the culture because, in many instances, they exhausted their efforts trying to emulate it – to “meet the people where they’re at.”
Charles Spurgeon once said, “I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.”
In their pursuit of relevance with the world, contemporary evangelicals largely rendered themselves irrelevant to the world. But the evangelical church has a rich history of upholding the timeless truths of Scripture. This is what people want. This is what people need, not a feigned appearance of “common ground.”
Once that truth is rediscovered, the church will once again understand that our relevance is found in offering what the world cannot, not in mimicking what it already has.
