Counter-cultural Relevance…

A friend got me thinking…  Actually he made me laugh and then aggravated me at the same time.  He’s good at that.  I’ll try to explain.  One of his comments on our community blog which was discussing “Christian” Music, referenced someone I confessed I liked to listen to.  His comment about Fergie, “the Duchess”, was funny and made me laugh…”big girls don’t cry”.  Shameless hussy. 🙂  Anyway, what irritated me further on in his comment was the reference to Casting Crowns.  He would have to like them!  And I have to confess here… I’ve never liked their music.  They got on my nerves from the very first song I heard by them.  Even to this day I still turn off the radio or change channels when I hear a Casting Crowns song come on.  For the longest time, I thought it was just me.  Everyone else seemed to love them, so I didn’t really say anything… until I read Patrol Magazine’s review of their latest album.  Oh my goodness, they wrote what I felt!  They didn’t like the music either!!  🙂

Moving on.  My friend posted a line from one of Casting Crowns’ songs,

“What this world needs is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance
Blending in so well that people can’t see the difference
And it’s the difference that sets the world free”

Now, I agree with that statement (don’t think it was applicable to my earlier post involving the Webb interview, but that’s for later) and it got me thinking about relevance and relating and how we, as believers, are to relate to the world, consider the world, minister to and in the world.  I remember reading sometime last month (had to go digging for it) in the Between Two Worlds blog, a post about a book being written by Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham’s grandson) regarding being in the world but not of it.  Actually it’s a couple of posts (Part 1 and Part 2), each expounding on the extremes of both sides of that dichotomy.  I also came across this post from another blogger today and thought it “relevant” to this train of thought, so am linking to it as well. 

I also think this ties in perfectly with the Christian Dating Bubble picture that I saw posted on the community blog.  Now, while I really would have liked that contraption for my daughter while she was in high school (No Touchey!!), I agree, it is ridiculous to segregate, isolate ourselves from those around us. 

I fully agree that we have to beware of compromising our integrity to accommodate the culture around us.  That’s grace without truth.  Conversely, we can’t completely disassociate ourselves from the world around us, condemning it because it is sinful and refusing to be involved.  That’s truth without grace.  Tim Keller speaks with much grace on dealing with culture and he’s got a lot of experience dealing with it, since his church is smack dab in the middle of New York City.  Another blogger I read, Steve McCoy, has a page where he stores links to all the Tim Keller resources he can find for the benefit of the reader/listener.  Helpful to believers wanting to speak grace AND truth into the culture.  Counter-cultural relevance at its best!