Seeking to be relevant or to matter?

This week's meditation comes in the form of a reblog...yes that is allowed. IN thinking about all that goes on in our world and what happens in our faith the question of the future of the church always comes up. One of the blogs that I follow had the following post around what young peole across all denominations want out of faith. Take a read.

"The young adults I talk to are not looking for easy answers, vague spiritualities, dumbed-down theology, slipshod worship, therapeutic relativism, private faith, or a mono-cultural God. They are desperately searching for a Church that offers an encounter with the Holy that transforms, convicts, inspires, and draws them in.

They are searching for a Church that demands their best. Whether it is in mission, worship, theology, or daily life, they want a Church that is relevant not because it tries to tell them only what they want to hear but because it offers them a vision of the Holy and its transforming power. A Church that reaches for and preaches relevance is a Church that makes itself irrelevant. The quest for relevance is the mark of quiescent extinction.

This does not mean we quietly make our way off to the Grey Havens exiled in our own sense of righteous irrelevance as a new age dawns. It means that questing for relevance, as if it is a goal worth achieving in and of itself, is a sad and tired pursuit. It is not relevance that defines a people, that marks transformational leadership, but passion and purpose. It is passion for God that shines through and marks a Church as Holy, as set aside for God’s use, and as deeply and overwhelmingly relevant.

There is a profound difference between a Church that is “relevant” and a Church that matters. We are relevant only insofar as we offer a way for our believers to have their lives formed to the pattern of Christ’s own life. We are relevant only insofar as we offer cruciform living and it is only in offering that transformation that we matter.

Young people are not looking for the easy path in life. They don’t mind a challenge – it is too often us who fear the challenge. They are not looking for the path of least resistance.

Look at the number of young people Occupying across the country or those joining Teach for America, the Peace Corps, the Episcopal Service Corps, Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Americorp, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, and the countless other service programs out there that call young people to live sacrificial lives in the service of others. These young people are not trying to find an easy path – they are trying to find a path that makes a difference both to themselves and to others.

The Church must honor that deep desire by offering more – by offering them all that we have ever had to offer – the life-changing encounter with Christ. "

The Rev. Robert Hedrickson

Interesting to say the least. What has your experience of church been? Has it been an attempt to be relevant or to matter in the lives of those who would follow Jesus?