3, 2, 1…liftoff

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: relevintage, vision
• Date: Apr 1,2006

Thank you for visiting Day One of the official launch relevintage. It is an honor that you have come!

It has been a hope of mine for some time now to enter the blogging world. I’ve been inspired to jump in the fray by reading various blogs over the last few years. Also, my brother-in-law Henry Imler has been encouraging me to blog for some time now. He also designed the template for relevintage. Thanks Henry!

Well, if you received the e-mail invite, you got a glimpse of what relevintage is going to be all about. On Day One, I would like to expound on the overall vision of this blog. Let’s dig in…

I have been immersed in local church ministry for some time now. It is a constant challenge to find fresh ways to minister to a diverse and relativistic culture, both inside and outside the four walls of our churches. But with the call to ministry comes a passion to minister and redeem that very culture. And whether we work in or outside of the church, we have that call! That is the vision behind relevintage!

relevintage, again, is an amalgamation of the words relevant and vintage.

Why use these words?

I have always felt that Christians should not be afraid to acknowledge the era in which they live. And going further, the Christian should feel a sense of urgency to keep in step with it. This sound like a bit of a paradox doesn’t it? Doesn’t Jesus say that we should be in the world, but not of it? How do you embody the notion of being a cultural redemptive?

Brian Orme , in his article Becoming a Cultural Redmeptive, published in ’04 on theooze.com , says it best:

I grew up in a Christian subculture that said, “Culture is wrong—stay away from it!” I believed this for much of my earlier years, thinking there needed to be a clear distinction between the sacred and secular; there had to be a line so I could stay on the right side. My thinking and attitude have shifted a great deal these days. I’m no longer afraid of culture; it still has many dark sectors, don’t get me wrong, but I have come to believe that we need to interact with certain things in culture to better understand people in the world and their underlying desire to be redeemed.

There is something within every culture that seeks to replicate the redemptive story of God. It may be somewhat unrecognizable at times, but the desire to be redeemed—to be set free, to be bought out of our bondage to selfishness, to watch God transform negative experiences into good—flows through every man.

It’s easy to get caught up in pointing out all of the depravity in our culture and to forget to look for signs and illustrations that illumine the innate desire for liberation. Redeeming culture has less to do with changing people to act morally and more to do with meeting people where they are and sharing the message of hope in a reference they will connect with.

We live within a unique culture, a culture with its own stories and references. If we separate completely from culture, we also separate ourselves from the mission of Christ, but if we connect too strongly with culture, we are in danger of becoming conformed to it. There is a balance—a balance that centers our hearts and minds on the mission of God within culture.

Becoming a cultural redemptive means that we are willing to connect with the expressions of our culture in order to translate the message of the kingdom: a message of freedom and a new start.

Now that we’ve answered the question of relevance, isn’t also being ‘vintage‘ an impossibility? How can they co-exist?

There is a danger, like Orme states, in being so relevant we become conformed to the world. There is a balance. That balance is what I call being ‘vintage.’

I’m not the first to use this term. Dan Kimball, a well-known emerging church expert and pastor, named his church, Vintage Faith Church, to affirm that his church is standing on the faith and theology of our forefathers and mothers. According to their website, they use a ‘philosophy of ministry that reflects the ancient roots of Chrisitanity.‘

Really, the term relevintage is a take on the descriptor Robert Webber has coined: ancient-future. Webber, who is the William R. and Geraldyne B. Myers Chair of Ministry and Director of M.A. in Worship & Spirituality at Northern Seminary, has a series of books called the ‘Ancient-Future’ line that aim to:

…find roots in the biblical and ancient world; to make connections with the church throughout history and around the world; and to establish an authentic faith and practice in a post-Christian world.

A great definition of what relevintage will be about comes from the book, The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, edited by Leonard Sweet, Dean of the Theology School at Drew University. In the introduction, he describes the different responses to the postmodern era by the evangelical world by using the ‘clearing’ analogy.

The second ‘clearing’ described by Sweet is what I resonate with: the park. Those in the park rely on the message handed down from generation to generation, but seek to find new ways of expressing that message. Thus they are said to focus on a “preserving message/evolving methods” paradigm.

Sweet states that the truism inherent in the park is that ‘to stay the same, some things have to change.’ Those in the park pull elements from all parts of the wider culture and incorporate them in ways to share the Gospel. Concerned with speaking the language of the culture, those in the park recognize the church as a rock of truth and changless, yet at the same time they contend that the church is also a ‘river of life that is ever flowing–making things fresh, cutting new beds, finding new ways.’

I hope this helps give an umbrella of understanding about where relevintage finds its heartbeat.

Stay tuned for the second installment of the vision for relevintage as I explore value #1: the Bible as the source for cultural redemption.

Remember the power of the blogosphere is in dialogue. That is why it is important for you to visit regularly! Leave comments…I’ll respond to all of them!