I never knew who to feel sorrier for at youth group — the new kid who was made to drink Coke through someone else’s sock, or the kid who invited them.
Anyone who has ever been to a Christian event knows Christian culture has some unique quirks. I’ve been immersed in it my entire life. In addition to youth groups, I’ve been able to rely on a Christian education from preschool to Grade 12, young adult groups, and my status as a pastor’s kid to make me familiar with Christian customs and fluent in Christianese (you know, phrases involving rain and eagles that have no discernible meaning but sound quite reassuring).
Many of my friends from school and church have also grown up in Christian culture. And somehow, despite the bizarre youth group traditions and worship songs asking God to “breathe on me,” we’ve actually come to like it.
Actually, we’ve come to love it.
Why?
Because we can be part of Christian culture without being part of the Christian gospel.
Because Christian culture is trendy but the gospel turns my life upside-down.
Because it’s easier going to church when our high school’s cool kids are also going, instead of people like Millie from Freaks and Geeks.
Because it’s easier to tell someone I’m a Christian knowing I won’t be immediately associated with some rural community that thinks drums and women’s pants are evil. That I belong to the same group as the Mars Hill hipsters and Hillsong surfers.
I also get to declare we don’t think technology is evil either. I can show them a Hillsong band member’s Instagram picture of the waves they surfed that day, with some Bible verse about God calming storms edited over top, or better yet, a line from Hillsong’s actual song “Oceans.”
I honestly enjoy these aspects of Christian culture. I love seeing my aesthetic and musical preferences joined with the gospel I base my life around. But it’s easy to let the former eclipse the latter, focusing more on Christian culture than on Christianity itself.
The social media accounts of my Christian friends are #blessed, with profile pictures with Bible verses or inspirational Christian quotes as the caption. We can obsess over Jon Foreman’s albums without our conversation ever referencing the God of the universe talked about in his lyrics.
We’re thrilled to be able to show the world that Christians aren’t part of some old-fashioned, overly conservative community – we’re trendy, we have good taste in music, and our CGs are just, like, a bunch of friends hanging out (that’s community groups, for you outsiders).
We want to prove to our culture and to ourselves that this Christianity thing we’re a part of is relevant and attractive. But instead of finding this in the timeless and powerful truths of the Bible, we’re searching for it in the most trivial aspects of our culture that ultimately stem from our own vanity.
The Christian gospel is not an accessory to make our lives spiritually fashionable. It’s not something we may simply describe as “pleasant” as we drink out of a coffee mug with our favourite Bible verse on it. It is radical, life-changing truth.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “If we truly know [God], we shall in fact fall on our faces.” In those rare moments when I am hit with the weight of my sin, the depth of Christ’s love and the power of the gospel, I’m not thinking about how great my current feelings would look expressed in italics over a picture of a sunset.
Jesus said we would be despised by the world for our love for Him. The Bible itself says Christianity seems foolish to those who aren’t experiencing it. At its core, Christianity is offensive: the God of the universe bled on a cross because of our abhorrent sin.
But this same message is also compelling and relevant, and this has nothing to do with temporary fashion trends and music tastes – it comes from an awesome, unchanging God.
If we want to show the world why Christianity is appealing, we need to point them to Jesus, not to trendy worship leaders. If we want to be part of something great, we need to spend more time looking towards our Creator than at devotional Instagram pictures.
Christianity needs people whose source of discomfort isn’t derived from their skinny jeans, but from letting the gospel challenge and transform every aspect of their lives as they chase after Jesus.
That’s a culture I want to be a part of.
