What does passion look like? I know when I see it. I can see the difference between a sports team playing with passion and one that is going through the motions . . . when I see it. But at its core, what does passion look like? In scripture, I read the gospel writer making specific reference to Jesus face. Maybe passion is something you see when you look into a person’s eyes. What did Jesus communicate with his eyes that made the gospel writer pen, “He looked and had compassion on them?” He wept over his friend’s death, and made such an impact on his friends that they made sure to record it for us. Jesus turned over the tables with a handmade whip as he declared, “My fathers’ house will be a house of prayer.” Maybe that’s what passion looks like.
As I waited for lunch on the first day of the Resurgence R12 Conference, Mar’s Hill’s Ghost Ship band prepared to lead worship. Their music style escapes my limited vocabulary. It’s cutting edge, but more like Curt Cobain than Paul Baloche. Self described as roots rock and roll, I have a hard time seeing Ghost Ship being asked to perform on Sunday morning in any West Michigan church. Their sound is too different, too loud, too guttural. None the less, as I listened I heard passion. While I might not pick their CD off the shelf, I know that Jesus smiles as they play an expression of love from their whole heart, a creative flow from their whole mind, soul and strength.
The Resurgence conference at Mariners Church in Irvine, CA is wrapped around the question of passion, and the speakers boil down the complex question into one simple word – Culture. Jesus calls his church to engage and transform the culture, and that requires passion.
Between 1970 and today, the Christian church walked along a path that many thought was the answer to this question. Contemporary Christian music, Christian outdoor concerts and events filled auditoriums and convention centers with hundreds of thousands of kids, teens, men and women. Meeting styles broke away from the stodgy church services which typified church life in the 1950’s and 1960’s. CCM artist Larry Norman even published a song in the late 1970’s called “Why should the devil have all the good music” as a celebration of the acceptance on contemporary Christian culture. However the results of these trends fell measurably short of our expectations.
Today’s post-modern America is also being called post-Christian by the Catholic Church, Christianity.com and the Christian News wire[i]. A majority of the country doesn’t accept the idea of an absolute truth any longer. Bible study participation statistics within the church are lower than they were 40 years ago, and outside the Christian church, the non-religious segment of the population considers church to be less relevant than it was when Christians began our contemporary cultural transformation. We are truly living in Mar’s Hill. What happened?
Maybe the problem is that the answer to this question can’t be captured in a sound bite, or Facebook info graphic. Christians have allowed the world to erect political and cultural walls that are clearly marked. The Christians side of the room is over there, and the big people can hang out over here. We have our music, or conferences, our conventions and our careers, and therewithal, we should be content.
The Resurgence movement and the R12 conference are challenging church leaders to take a different approach. If the church tries to avoid cultural collisions, it will surely fade away. However, trying to impose our rules and religious traditions over the top of the existing non-religious culture leads to frustration and failure in both the secular and sacred camps.
Lacrae is a Christian rap artist who is speaking at the two day event. He lives in Atlanta in the midst of the hip hop and rap Mecca, describes what he believes is the beginning of the solution this way. “God reached me when I was in that world. I know he can reach others the same way.” Lacrae is a missionary to a foreign land. The urban hip hop generation speaks a foreign language, has a different value system, and is hostile to the idea of anyone coming in and imposing a suburban, or white own culture over the top of what they value, and hold as important.
As Lacrae talked, he told the story of what changed his life. A blue eyed, blond, culturally different haired young man named Joe who knew Jesus decided to share life with Lacrae as his friend. Lacrae wasn’t his project. He was a new believer who needed discipling, and he was just starting a journey to become all that Jesus wanted him to be. Joe’s friendship opened doors to Lacrae’s heart. Lacrae’s challenge to an auditorium of thousands of twenty and thirty something pastors was to go home, and do the same, crossing the street, cultural and political boundaries.
Find | Follow | Friend Tim