New and Improved!!



New is powerful. New is seductive. New promises something more. Old is, well, old.

There's an old saying—sorry, I couldn't resist that transition—in advertising: The only thing more adaptable than the cockroach is the consumer. It encapsulates the idea that "new" is the holy grail of marketing. New markets. New products. New ideas. Marketing professionals seek these because we so readily tire of "old", and "new" is the only thing that can separate us from more of our money.

Too bad. Old can be very, very good. Wine, brandy, and friends come to mind. As does Christianity. It's an ancient faith. Perhaps not as old as Judaism or Hinduism, but very old nonetheless. For thousands of years creeds—very basic outlines of the Christian faith—have united Jesus' followers. For example, consider the Apostle's and the Nicene creeds. These are simple statements of faith that have served the church for centuries. But in the contemporary evangelical church, they are given little attention. That's largely because they're so old, along with the liturgies and ancient devotional practices that seem so dated nowadays. In their place we now have relevance, which can degenerate into an argument for newness.

A desire for the church to be "relevant" can be a good thing. German theologian and cultural critic Helmut Thielicke observed, "The Gospel must be repeatedly forwarded to a new address because the recipient is repeatedly changing places of residence." His wry observation underscores the need for relevance, which in the best sense is an imperative for presenting the Gospel, once and for all delivered to the saints, in a way that is understandable to a given culture.

Unfortunately, a push for relevance often degenerates into attempts to satisfy an appetite for something new. We no longer have church. We have gatherings. We no longer sing hymns. We sing choruses. We no longer have parishes. We have satellites. Our is the time of the Senior Pastor as CEO. If you google church leadership and you get 571,000 hits. Biblical preaching? 79,000. The missionary bulletin board gives way to the coffee ministry's menu. But according to John Meacham of Newsweek, the church in north America is in decline. Some might be tempted to point out that Newsweek knows something of decline and their assessment may be suspect. But frankly, his article passes the sniff test.

Meanwhile, mega-churches are thriving on a mixture of "new", with slick programming and an abundant offering of christian goods and services. Many of these large congregations are embracing the latest engine for church growth—satellite campuses. This "one-church-many-locations" approach leverages the personal popularity of high-capacity, high-profile leaders, along with technological advances, to extend the influence of a given church.

Even better, it's new.

Jesus did say that you cannot put new wine in old wine skins. The cultural forms of the church will change. The question is then not if, or how, they change, but why they change. If Christianity embraces something new in response to the Spirit's leading, we can all say, "Yes, and amen!" If it embraces "new" in response to consumer-driven cultural preference, we should be saying, "God forbid!" The deepest need in the North American church today is discernment, that we might know the difference between being led by the Spirit and being led by our natural desire for "new and improved".

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