Mezzamorphis

I was reading this post on Pyromaniacs this morning and it brought to mind something I was thinking about earlier this week. When we seek to spread the gospel to other countries and other cultures, are we attempting to overlay that gospel with our own Westernized ideas? If we do this, are the people we speak to hearing the gospel or are they hearing the American dream?

As a worship leader, I tend to gravitate towards music that I enjoy and that I think the congregation will find meaningful. In my particular area and in our church, this is more often than not modern praise music like Fee, Paul Baloche, Casting Crowns, Third Day, Hillsong United, etc. I’m also a big fan of British music so Delirious?, Vicky Beeching, and Hillsong London get thrown in as well. To me, this is not a cultural stretch because this is the style of music that is popular and meaningful to those who attend our church.[1]

I saw a video earlier this week of a group that was doing street preaching in Europe. One of their activities was a rock concert held in a city square. What caught my eye was that they flew in an unknown Christian band from the States to perform at this concert. This immediately struck a bad chord with me.[2] Instead of bringing in a band that nobody has heard of from the US, why not bring in a band that nobody has heard of from this country? The Americans have no idea what the cultural context they are playing in might be, or what might actually speak to those they are attempting to witness to. The European band would at least have some idea of the culture they are attempting to reach out to, and won’t require a translator when they speak.When we go into an area, we have to know the context of the place we’re trying to reach. With music, this means finding out what is the cultural norm there and crafting our worship music to fit.

Overall, to be in context with the culture doesn’t mean that we do whatever works. The message of the Christ should never be sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism. We try to make our message fit the context of the world we live in, but we don’t change the content of the message. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”. The gospel is the good news we are commissioned to spread, the message that we need to get out to those who don’t yet know Christ. The gospel is the saving power of Christ, performed and completed through His death and resurrection. The gospel message is enough. Though we shape the delivery of the message, may we never change the content.

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[1] Quick aside: this doesn’t mean that we don’t sing older hymns. They will surface from time to time, though not using the traditional music. I don’t see anything wrong with this, but it’s a topic for another time.

[2] See what I did there? Music, bad chord? Never mind.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.