Sometimes it feels like people who believe in God are out of touch with the rest of the world.  You hear this from both inside and outside of the church.  Philip Yancey in What’s so Amazing about Grace wondered if we focus so much on legalism that we’ve missed out on the call of grace.  Gabe Lyons and George Barna used the book unChristian to show just how far we’ve come from the Biblical concepts of love and forgiveness.  And they are Christ-followers!  Even the secular media is in on the act.  Newsweek just this week ran a cover story about “The end of a Christian America” (cue melodramatic music).

But they all have a point.  It’s hard to look at some (not all) churches and certain (again, not everyone) Christians  and see anything fresh and vibrant.  What we are handed is old traditions that very few people can explain them.  Let alone why we still do them.  It seems that the only reason we cling to some traditions is because that’s what we have always done.  Is it any wonder that so many people find it hard to imagine God is alive, let alone good.

In many ways the church simply feels out of touch with society.

Then along comes some creative people and they produce something like this: passion of the Christ – facebook style. The imagination of this just astounds me.  Not only is it good theology, but it’s hilarious, and touching.   Plus Jesus is riding a dinosaur.  Which, I believe, is entirely, historically, accurate.

This is what church should be. Vibrant.  Engaging.  Truthful.  And yes, entertaining.

Nowhere does it say in the Bible that the church can’t be relevant.  That Christians can’t take the culture around them and use it to talk about Jesus.  That somehow we must stick with 1500’s English.

Living out a life of faith is more than clinging to traditions.  It’s about going where ever you need to because God has sent you there.  It’s about trusting in God, not in “what we’ve done for the last 30 years.”  This isn’t to say tradition is a bad thing in and of itself.  If your mission is to keep the same services you have been for 30 years, and it’s working, and honoring God, and people are growing…great.  Keep at it.

But for a lot of people that doesn’t work.  For a lot of people they don’t connect with traditions, because those traditions aren’t relevant to them.  Jesus spoke to people in ways that they understood.  Maybe that means we should too.  So I encourage you to take this link and send it to your friends.  E-mail this page to people who don’t know Jesus.  Let them see Jesus in a new way – a facebook way!

(ht: Noel Heikkinen)