How the church can navigate cultural change without losing what endures
A professor recounts a student’s inability to recall a sermon and uses it to explore the widening communication gap between modern and postmodern worlds. The article weighs the benefits and unintended costs of adapting church techniques to cultural shifts and calls leaders to evaluate change wisely. It urges holding fast to what is permanent while adjusting thoughtfully to what is temporary.
- Postmodern cultural shifts have made preaching, evangelism, and apologetics more challenging.
- Adapting techniques can help reach people, but it may also produce unintended trade-offs.
- Leaders can evaluate change by asking whether it is scriptural, purposeful, important, and wise in consequences.
By Lee Snyder
I teach public speaking to college freshmen. Recently, I asked the class to listen to a live speaker and then report what they observed. One student—call him Darrell—surprised me.
Darrell announced, “I attended First Community Church and listened to the sermon.”
That was rather concise, so I asked, “What did the preacher talk about?”
“I told you, it was a sermon.”
“About what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t listen to him.”
Communication is more difficult than ever on both sides of the generation gap. Nowadays, when your child explains why she needs her own cell phone, it’s an exercise in cross-cultural communication!
Somewhere during the last two or three decades, cultural transformations ambushed us. Communication became nearly impossible when Darrell and the preacher emigrated into different worlds.
Modern and Postmodern Worlds
The preacher Darrell heard lives in the “modern” world, the same world in which the Restoration Movement was born. Until about 1970, life in our branch of the movement was much like that of the 1800s. We sent missionaries throughout the world. We defended the Lord’s Supper and baptism. We excelled at teaching doctrine. It was a peaceful world for us. We survived the turmoil of the 1960s unscathed, except for some discord over the charismatic movement.
But storms were brewing. The postmodern world was about to be born and the peace would be shattered. (Postmodern ideas had been around since Friedrich Nietzsche, but they hadn’t become part of our everyday lives yet.) In the last third of the 20th century, secular prophets sounded warnings. For example, Marshall McLuhan explained that electronic media would accelerate our lives and rewire our brains. Speculative stories written by Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, and Kurt Vonnegut questioned the existence of reality.
Now, Darrell’s world has arrived and a future in flux has replaced the stable past. In fact, we are so overwhelmed with change that we have forgotten our past. I recently asked a preacher, “How’s the Restoration Movement doing where you live?”
He replied, “What Restoration Movement?” Even young ministers are weary of jogging on the cutting edge.
Changes Have Consequences
When the storm of the postmodern world broke, Christians were blindsided. Preaching to a fragmented audience is hard. Evangelism also is tougher than it once was. In the 1990s, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship used the same techniques that had worked well on campus in the 1980s, but now they fell flat. Kevin Ford and Jim Denney explain (in Jesus for a New Generation) that students had changed too much for the old ways to work.
Defending the faith (apologetics) became more challenging, too. From the 1960s to the 1980s, we confirmed Christianity by using arguments from C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Josh McDowell. However, today’s audience listens politely to our evidence, then says, “That’s fine for you but it doesn’t do anything for us.”
The church—and the whole world—is living on a fault line. Last year the United States experienced a political race between a Texas modernist and a New England postmodernist. No wonder they talked past each other. America, under mostly modern leadership, is fighting a medieval enemy while allied with postmodern Europe. No wonder Gary Hamel tells business leaders, “If you’re comfortable, you’re outmoded!”
Some savvy Christian leaders decided the arrival of postmodernism was not an ambush but an open door, and they figured out how to enter it. Their congregations adapted to the new postmodern (“pomo”) public. Worship services became seeker sensitive. Instead of some poorly prepared man leading old hymns, well-rehearsed praise teams performed “contemporary Christian music.” Sermons were delivered via PowerPoint slides, dialogues, video, and drama. The outer-directed passion of the church was redefined from “evangelism” to “reaching people.”
Other congregations imitated the innovative examples of these leaders. The results are mixed. We have more megachurches than ever. Our professionally managed worship services are never boring. Church planting is now an efficient science because we have mastered public relations techniques.
However, the status quo is not perfect. An old joke says, “status quo” is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” We do have a “mess” now because there’s no time to reflect and retrench, let alone to plan the future. By the time we react to the needs of the moment, they’ve changed. Ministers burn out from keeping up with our attention-deficient culture.
Under these circumstances, we make revolutionary changes without considering the unintended consequences. For example, one downside of the new homiletics is that some preachers avoid sermons with depth and doctrine because they know that pomos have short attention spans. But when these young Christians are ready to become teachers and leaders, after several years of hearing lightweight sermons and watching videos in Sunday school, what will they have to say? Today’s church needs excellent training, not entertaining.
Another trade-off is that the more effectively we minister to postmoderns, the less we minister to everyone else. Generally, the most mature Christians are 40 or older. In a business, they would be valued as mentors, but postmodern congregational leaders treat them as obstacles to overcome. A book on worship puts readers in one of two categories: those eager to use exciting media in the church and those who are just print culture geezers. Tough choice!
Congregations also include people who were born too late to fit the pomo demographic. (I call them “holographics.”) Though younger than pomos, they already are looking for depth. My 8-year-old niece will study Latin in school this fall. What will her generation expect from the church? Preacher, better break out the industrial-strength box of “Sermon Helper”!
The postmodernization of the church places all our eggs in one basket. When the bottom of the basket falls out, we’ll go hungry. Postmodernism is already becoming obsolete. The most revolutionary way of doing something quickly becomes standard practice. As Ken Fairbrother says, you can make a tradition out of breaking traditions. Our pomo ministers will find themselves to be “geezers” sooner than they expect, unless they retool to meet some new challenges.
Permanence Is Ballast for Change
The church doesn’t have to predict every trend our culture will follow. Amid the world’s fluctuation, we stand firm on him who is unshakable. Temporary things, like the cut of this year’s lapels, we hold lightly, ready to trade them for something better. For example, human language changes, so we always need new Bible translations. Music preferences change from place to place, so saints in Chicago don’t sing, “The Church in the Wildwood,” and Nebraskans don’t sing, “Throw Out the Lifeline.”
But great things endure through time and across space. Lost people still need a Savior. The edge of God’s Word is still sharp as a laser in the hand of the Spirit. The church’s priority is still, “occupy till I come.” Our mission statement remains inscribed on the last page of a book by a businessman named Matthew.
Change Thoughtfully
The Protestant Reformation asked, “What is the church’s authority?” The Restoration Movement asked, “What is the church’s doctrine?” But today’s revolution asks, “What are the church’s techniques?” The worship wars have made us question our old practices.
Controversies over techniques split some congregations. Many churches now conduct separate services: traditional worship (with decaf served afterward in the fellowship hall), blended worship (with cappuccino on tap), and contemporary worship (with Jolt and Red Bull on ice).
People hold two attitudes toward change. On one hand, traditionalists might fire a preacher just for preaching before Communion instead of after. They sing with Groucho Marx, “Whatever it is, I’m against it!” On the other hand, the CRO’s (chief revolutionary officers) of the church live by the motto of Lee Kun Hee of Samsung Corporation: “Change everything except your wife and children.”
But some people hold a third attitude toward change. They know some critical questions that help them decide whether new ways are better than old ones. We need this attitude among our leaders. It is not enough just to say, “Change is good” or “tradition is good.” That’s like saying “fire is good”—it depends on what’s burning, your trash or your house.
To evaluate reasons for change, ask these questions.
- Is it scriptural—or at least not antiscriptural? (Praise teams and church buildings are not scriptural but they are not against Scripture, either.)
- Does it serve a good purpose or is it just a current fashion?
- Does it serve a purpose that is important for us? (Do you really need a minister of blogging?)
- What are the consequences of adopting a new idea? (Look for the trade-offs.)
The transformation of our culture is not over. We have not changed too much; rather, we haven’t changed enough. Being stuck in the ’90s is no smarter than being stuck in the ’60s. The Pharisees were blind to their own times (Matthew 16:3). Instead of trying to catch up with the world, let’s start leading it. Begin by keeping an eye on what is permanent and by making changes wisely.
The members of the next generation will be neither modern nor postmodern. Whether they wear eyebrow rings or Rolexes, whether they dress for success or distress, we know an old story that will break their hearts with joy and send them running home to their Father.
Lee Snyder is professor of rhetorical studies at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
