What’s the difference between cool and relevant?  Honestly, I’m not asking because I’m worried about my image or my fashion.  Gave up that fight ages ago…

I’m asking because so many people in Christian churches, and especially the music scene, seem to be doing their best to be cool.  Is this helping us connect with the world in which we live?

For years, a couple of Christian friends have been telling me that one of the things we should be doing is showing the world that we can be cool too.  Oh dear… even the idea of that sounds lame.  I mean surely you either are cool or you’re not.  I’m not entirely sure what cool is, but whatever it is, it seems to be something that you’ve either got or you don’t.  Perhaps it’s some level of confidence or an ability to be yourself in a way that makes people want to be like you.

What do you think cool is?

One thing’s for sure, there seems to be a contradiction in terms when we say, “I can be cool too”.  The point is, the cool ones are the ones everyone else wants to be like.

So what is it to be relevant then?  And is it any better than being cool?  Lots of churches are trying to be relevant to the communities in which they operate, and I’m often seeing genuinely good attempts to understand out context and connect ourselves with it.

For example, the city workers’ ministry that my colleague Craig Broman works with hosts events that regularly have as many non-Christians as Christians, partly because of the fact that something about these events has connected with the people being invited.

I wouldn’t say the events are uncool, but they’re certainly not trying to be cool.  And yet the proof is in the pudding: they’re getting people along…

I wonder if relevance is something we should be aiming for in our outreach to our community and in our music, more than coolness?  Perhaps it’s ok for us to be doing contemporary music, because it’s one of the languages of our generation…  Perhaps the thing about relevance is that it something we do for the purpose of communication and connection?

On the other hand, my gut tells me that ‘coolness’ (I hate the term, actually) is something that is all about trying to impress.  On this reckoning, trying to be cool might actually harm our efforts to be proclaiming Jesus to the world, because the very essence of Jesus’ ministry was not about trying to impress people, rather it was trying to love them and reach out to them.

He actually never said, “I am the Messiah, isn’t that cool” or even anything remotely like that.  He definitely sought to communicate his identity, which he did by asking pointed questions and by performing miraculous signs.  And he definitely did want people to follow him and to be like him… but it certainly wasn’t about trying to be popular.

No sooner had his disciple Peter acknowledged to him that Jesus was indeed the longed-for Messiah, Jesus told him about the way of the cross, the way of sacrifice: of laying down your life for others.  Those who want to be like him are to be like him in this.  Those who want to proclaim Jesus will have no hope if they are trying to impress.  I can’t see how trying to be hip will ever win anyone for Christ.  It’s almost pointing people in exactly the opposite direction…

Do you remember the song “Jesus was way cool” by King Missile?  I think it missed the point.

So I’m wondering if relevance is about connecting and communicating with people, whereas coolness is about impressing them.  No wonder I feel so weird about the whole idea of coolness in the first place.

What do you think?