• We elevate cultural relevance when we focus on personal or social transformation and not Gospel transformation.
• We elevate cultural relevance when our sermons are so practical that they lack a Gospel priority.
• We elevate cultural relevance when our outreach demeans others who preach the Gospel.
• We elevate cultural relevance when personal evangelism is an oxymoron at our churches.
• We elevate cultural relevance when attendance is celebrated more than conversions.
• We elevate cultural relevance when not offending seekers is often more important than telling the Gospel.

The good news is that cultural relevance and the Gospel aren’t at odds. Relevance is a tool to be used by all churches from the painfully hip to the quietly liturgical, because it is the necessary consequence of doing things God’s way. It is a missiological principle that helps us fulfill the goal of getting the Gospel to the greatest amount of people. Whatever community you find yourself in, use relevance with discernment and the Gospel with liberality.

From Ed Stetzer’s post Ruining and Recovering Relevance

1. Mentoring – This generation has great respect for those older than they are. Most of them have good relationships with their parents. They have learned from older people all their lives, and they don’t want to stop now. They want to be led and taught in their places of work, in their churches, and in their families. They particularly want to learn from couples who have had long and successful marriages. Many Millennials see such examples as heroes to emulate.
2. Gentle spirit – This category is easier to describe by what Millennials do not want in leaders. Divisive, loud, and acrimonious persons turn them off. They loathe politicians and political pundits who scream at each other. They are leaving churches to some extent because they see many Christian leaders as negative and prone to divisiveness. They are repulsed by business leaders with harsh and autocratic spirits.
3. Transparency and authenticity – I wish Jess and I had counted the number of times that Millennials used the word “real” to describe leaders they want to follow. As one Millennial told us, her generation “can smell phony and pretentiousness a mile away.” They don’t want phony; they want authentic. They don’t want pretentious; they want transparent.
4. Integrity – The Millennials are weary of politicians who don’t keep promises. They are tired of Christian leaders who fail basic moral standards. They are fed up with business leaders who are more concerned about personal gain than serving others. They want leaders with integrity.

From Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, and culled from research in his upcoming book The Millennials.

Being in a college town means there should always be a desire to reach the next generation, the college students, with the gospel. If you want to hear how to do that, listen to this sermon by Kevin DeYoung. Kevin is a “pretty big deal” in the evangelical world, writing books and speaking at conferences. He’s also the pastor of a local church, in his case University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI. What Kevin shares in this sermon is a model every church should follow to engage the next generation with the gospel. We should

• Grab them with passion
• Win them with love
• Hold them with holiness
• Challenge them with truth
• Amaze them with God

This is a challenge to us at Grace as we look towards a new chapter at our church with the recent hire of Tyson Lemke. We need to understand that while a Senior Pastor will lead us, he cannot do the work of ministry for us. We individually need to be committed to making and sending disciples and planting churches. This is the model of engagement and connection that the Bible teaches and one that we ignore to our peril and sin.

A church in a college town that doesn’t minister to college students falls short of all that the local church is called to be. This doesn’t mean that a church needs to specifically target college students to the exclusion or slighting of non-students, but it should seek, as Paul did, to be all things to all people that some might be saved for the sake of the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). One of the challenges at Ambassador will be our willingness to invest in, and minister to, college students while not catering to them.

Justin Holcomb, our dean at Re:Train, has written a list of “the top six things you need to know if you’re doing college ministry.” I pray that churches in college towns would take up the challenge to reach college students for Christ and that lives would be transformed by the gospel.

1. Don’t confuse the gospel with religion
   To prevent doing this, talk about Jesus (who he is and what he has done) all the time. If you don’t, students will think Christianity is really about something else, like morality, philosophy, piety, social justice, or a religious experience. If you start talking more about what they should do instead of what Jesus has done, you’re preaching another gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), which is to put heavy burdens on them (Matt. 23:2-4).
2. Learn about sexual assault
   The prevalence of sexual assault is staggering. At least 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are or will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. And the numbers are much worse for college students. These young women and men feel crippling shame, deep guilt, and painfully alone because of what has been done to them.
3. Teach students how to read and interpret the Bible for themselves
   This means being clear on the relationship between the law and the gospel. The law is “perfect, true, and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:7-9) and “holy, just, and good” (Rom. 7:12), but it does not effect what it demands (Gal. 3:21). The good news is that on the cross Jesus took our penalty of law-breaking and fulfilled the law, so he could give us his righteousness. God then works in us to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). The very law that condemns us becomes the very thing that God fulfills in us through the power of his Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:18-23), not through our effort (Gal. 3:1-3).>
4. Be prepared to comfort students because of divorce and death
   College students are at a phase in life where their parents seem to get divorced, if they aren’t already, now that their children are leaving home. This is also the age when grandparents begin to die.
5. Study apologetics
   Many students still have brain cells left, and they’ve been reading and thinking about their world. They have legitimate questions about who Jesus is and what he did and why he isn’t just a good example. They want to know why they should trust the Bible as reliable. The immense suffering in the world makes them doubt either the goodness or power of God or both. They think Christians are hypocrites and bigots, so why should they become one?
6. Be prepared to counsel students about what they’re really facing
   You must be prepared to counsel about eating disorders, pornography, cutting, abusive relationships, and the lingering damage of sexual sin. College students tend to be the shock-absorbers of the myths our cultural sells. Idols are brutal slave masters.

They touch on grace, legalism, mercy ministries, hiring staff. Fabulous stuff.

Interesting research and notes from Sam Rainer

Our research has debunked the myth that the influence of the secular university pushes young adults out of the church. No significant difference exists between the dropout rates of those who attend at least a year of college and those who do not. For those that attend college, 69% of active churchgoing youth stop attending church for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22. Yet 71% of active youth who do not go to college stop attending church during the same period.

So overall, the college itself is not to blame for the dropout issue. What about analyzing different majors? New research from the University of Michigan reveals some surprising results on religiosity and the college major. They measure religiosity by religious attendance and how important students consider the importance of religion in their lives. Here are some highlights from the study:

• The odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives.
• Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity.
• Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.
• Majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students.

Very helpful information, especially when ministering in an college town.

From Jonathan Dodson, of Austin City Life, posted on his blog Church Planting Novice

We just finished a class called Interpreting Scripture and Culture in a church that is very unchurched. The goal was for people to learn how to read their Bibles well, while also reading their culture well. In short, we are trying to plant a self-theologizing church.

It was a six week course that laid out a Trinitarian, Christ-centered approach to interpretation, followed by five weeks focusing on genres. This method taught them to depend on the Spirit, begin with the Text, move to Theology, and end up at Culture/Life.

Here is the syllabus for the course. I drew from various resources, many of which are just rolling around in my head, but the actual books and articles I returned to included:

Biblical Interpretation

• How to Read the Bible as Literature – Ryken provides a literary perspective that is typically neglected by hermeneutics books. He helps every genre come to life, to activate our imaginations, to enter the world of the text with intrigue and anticipation.
• A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible – Stein has decades of experience and offers a basic, accessible approach to reading the genres of the Bible well.

Cultural Interpretation

• Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Smith
• Is There Meaning in this Text? Vanhoozer
• v.Culture Dodson
• Counsel Ephesians – Powlinson’s article, now in Seeing With New Eyes, is marvelous. It is a tour through exgesis, biblical and systematic theology, ending up at practical theology. Although it assumes a certain level of knowledge of hermeneutics, its worth reading several times.

Pointers

Although it was a small class, we all learned a great deal, worshiped during our study, and grew in our understanding. Here are a few things I learned:

• Don’t call it Interpreting Scripture and Culture and people will be less intimidated. Call it Reading Bible and Culture Well or something.
• Use Fee & Stuart’s Reading the Bible for All It’s Worth for required reading again. It was well received.
• Continue to insist on homework and have the students run the last class.

“They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,”.

It’s sad when a helpless child is seen as providing unconditional love instead of our all loving and sovereign Father.