traviswright

One more quote to share with you from the book “Worship Matters.” The quote is actually from Os Guinness in the book “Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance,” but was referenced in Worship Matters.

“By our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant.” (pg 15)

I worry that too many times I have pursued relevance over faithfulness, and I fear that many other churches, pastors, and worship leaders have pursued the same thing. It’s not all about the best lights, the best production, the most cutting edge music, the best musicians, the most dynamic pastor, the best HD video screens, the most seamless transitions, the best videos, the funniest sermon illustrations, or how many people you can stuff into your church services. It’s about being faithful to what God has called us to do. I’m not knocking all the things that I listed above. Being relevant to your congregation is extremely important. However, our focus should be on Jesus, and we should be driven by faithfulness, not relevance.