Have you ever watched the movie Napoleon Dynamite? I haven’t–not all the way through, anyway. I like certain kinds of what I call “stupid humor”, but I lost interest really quick when I tried to watch this movie. Like maybe 10 minutes into it, I said, “That’s enough”, and changed the channel.
I understand, though, why Napoleon Dynamite was so popular. The one thing that it had going for it is that people really get a kick out of watching someone who thinks he is cool, but really isn’t.
Maybe I related to the movie more than I cared to admit. I like to think I’m cool, but I’m really not. Coolness is a gift that The Wild One and The Director both share, but somehow it has escaped me. I am the geek of our family. I try very hard to fit in to the coolness that is my family, but I’m not very good at it. I have discovered, much to my dismay, that often when The Director laughs at me, it’s not because I said something funny. Oh, well….
This is going to sound terrible, but I get a similar dose of amusement sometimes when I see the many different ways that churches try to slick up their public image, all in attempt to appear “cool” or “relevant.” We design hip billboards and high-impact TV commercials, where the people in them are usually good-looking and skinny, and look very nearly as happy as those people in the beer commercials—except they are more modestly dressed and often have their kids with them. You get the idea. Then we have churches new and old arriving on the scene with hip new names like
Re:Vamp or
The Rain or
GodPursuit. (I just made those names up off the top of my head; forgive me if your church is actually named one of these.) And I don’t know how many church entities I’ve seen that have picked up the catchwords “real” and “relevant” in their public literature.
Besides trying to improve our public face, lots of our church institutions are also trying to update their inner workings as well. We use animated PowerPoint lyric projection and video clips to punctuate the sermon. We design our sanctuaries as dark, windowless, acoustically dead auditoriums so we can have total control of lighting and audio–which really messes with some creative types who function better in natural light. We podcast our sermons now, or stream our services live via the Internet. Our services are becoming more streamlined, too–sometimes programmed to the minute just like a television show. We’re renaming our staff titles, as well. Gone are simple titles like “Pastor” or “Youth director”; now we’re using more suave terms like “Executive Pastor of Outreach” or “Campus Operations Director”. In some extreme cases, I’ve heard of new leadership coming in, firing all existing church staff and hiring new blood, to try and change the direction and approach.
Now, it isn’t that any of these ideas are necessarily bad ones (although arbitrarily firing everybody might be a bit over the top). And I happen to like technology, and even hip new names. But if you look past all the refurbishing to the substance and structure of our church systems, for the most part, it’s all pretty much the same as it was before. We’re still making people watch the back of other people’s heads; we’re still not engaging people in true Christian community; and we’re still having trouble making a real connection with non-believers. In an era where our culture is becoming more and more interactive, our church services overall are becoming even less participatory—playing more and more like a show where people sit and watch. Bottom line: we haven’t really changed all that much. It’s a costume change for the same old song and dance. Napoleon Dynamite trying to act cool.
The point is, in our attempts to be “relevant”, we’re really missing the point about what it means to be relevant. There are some who say relevance is a myth, that the church was never intended to be relevant, but revolutionary. And I can certainly see their point. But I guess it’s a matter of how you define “relevant.” If relevance means coolness…then yeah, relevance is a myth. But if relevance has more to do with being effective and making an impact on the world around us (and I think it does)–then that is the type of relevance we should strive for.
I personally believe that the beauty of the gospel and authentic Christ-following is that they are eternally relevant, across time and culture. We don’t really have to jazz them up; we just need to make them accessible to people. It’s really a lot simpler than we’ve made it out to be…
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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Methinks you really need to *watch* Napoleon Dynamite. For it really isn’t about someone trying to be cool. It’s about someone who is woefully *uncool* and still manages to impact others.
Much like the church should be . . .
As an alternative, check out the movie Lars and the Real Girl. There’s much there that church would benefit from seeing . . .
I think most people outside the church see this stuff as the costumery it is. I know congregations that have grown after doing this, but in my meager experience their number one problem is helping move those people to genuine faith. They came for the show, after all.
People find God when they’ve reached a point when only the real and authentic will do for them. Christians just need to be there for these people when they reach that point.
tysdaddy,
It may appear at first look that I rushed to judgment on the movie, or shouldn’t have used it as an example without seeing it all the way through; but in fact, I derived that particular interpretation from others who had seen it (and loved it).
Jim,
Amen, and amen.
Jeff,
I think it really is a lot simpler than we make it. I think we so often fall into that mindset that says,” if our attendance grows, the Kingdom grows.” or ,”The number of people who came down to the altar is the number that were “saved”, Praise God!!”..
I have faith in God, I no longer have any in altar calls. Sure it is great to get prayed for, but you have to actually respond to God’s call, not necessarily to that of a preacher.
If we listen to Jesus’ words, we will always be relevant because LOVE never goes out of style..
Oh and I saw Napoleon Dynamite as a really uncool guy, being himself. It was pretty stupid, but I liked it. Any way, I think there is something to be learned from it because so many people are not real, they play this game of trying to look like they have it all together when they don’t. I see a lot of (institutional) churches(and even some Christians) the same way. As if people will not believe the gospel if we who do believe don’t have it all together. I think the more powerful testimony is the one that is real, with slips and falls and where His Grace abounds. If we in fact have it all together, we really don’t need God