Omnirelevance: The Great Commission Meets Culture

OmniRelevance

The Great Commission Meets Culture

Mark Hodges

ISBN 978-1-64670-092-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64670-093-6 (Digital)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019915741

Copyright © 2020 Mark Hodges

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Disconnected

A Shrewd Future: From Linear to Exponential

The Pace that Passes Understanding

Rise of the On-Demand Culture

Loyalty Programs Are Killing Us

Let Me Expose Myself to You

Data. Rules.

Branded

Post-Modernism and the Modern Era Church

Family Dysfunction Made Functional

Contentment Does Not Compute

Take Up Your Mat

A Marketer Looks at Churches

About the Author

Acknowledgements

This has been a long time coming, and there have been so many special individuals in my life who have encouraged me to write that I could make this dedication to a lot of people. While I love to write, I never made it part of my daily routine.

For this work, though, I have to dedicate this book to my dad, William B. Hodges, MD. We lost him to cancer one week before my twelfth birthday, and that event altered the fabric of my life more than any other single event.

Those who knew my dad knew that he viewed his role in this world as one of a healer, both of body and spirit. I cannot even begin to count the number of times he would leave our house in the middle of the night or be taken to the hospital by the police during heavy snow so that he could care for his patients. I am blessed that there are still those whom he treated that have been kind enough to share fond memories of my father.

Most importantly, he helped guide me to a relationship with Jesus—a relationship that has been the core anchor to me following my father’s death. I do not see myself ever having such an impact on people as my father—those are big shoes to fill. I can only hope that this work embodies his hope to bring the message of Christ to the world. I am blessed to have had a father that gave me more in twelve years than most kids receive from their dads in a lifetime.

I also have to give a significant nod of appreciation to Dr. Jack Shock at Harding University. This man is a master communicator, a special friend, and my north star as a career mentor. His pedigree goes from master teacher to working in the White House as the former Director of Presidential Letters and Correspondence during the Clinton administration. Dr. Shock taught me many things, but one of the greatest gifts he gave me was a deeper understanding of our amazing First Amendment to the Constitution.

I think his Communications Law class (if it’s even still called that) should be required for every leader. Simply understanding the reality that the same amendment which protects our freedom of religion also protects pornography or any other content we often find objectionable is a huge step toward understanding how to approach communicating with people in this world. His instruction on listening so that we can be heard and having both grace and understanding in our communications is a basis for why I have been able to do anything in my career.

Dr. Shock also taught me a very valuable lesson as I worked under his guidance in student publications. When we, as students, were redirected by the school administration on some points, he taught us the valuable lesson that freedom of the press is for those who own presses. What an amazing world we live in where the free flow of information is no longer bound by the privileged few who own a press. And what a daunting challenge as consumers of content to discern what is real when oftentimes there is no editorial control.

We are blessed by those who come into our lives at whatever stage we are, but I feel we are especially blessed by those who prepare us for the future. Both my dad and Dr. Shock fill those roles. While my dad is no longer with us (and those memories are mine), Dr. Shock still teaches and draws energy from the promise of our current generation of learners. You will be doing yourself a favor to connect with him and audit a class or two if you are serious about connecting with people in this world.

1

Disconnected

We’re disconnected. Really.

It’s not all that surprising, given that we are human and fallible creatures. In fact, getting parts of it wrong is expected. Where we have gone wrong is glamorizing the foul-ups, writing them in stone, and celebrating them as how things ought to be.

My heritage is in the Churches of Christ (you can insert your background in that sentence and you will likely see many of the things I have seen). Don’t get me wrong, I love my heritage. I have been shaped by amazing people who are well-intentioned and, in virtually all cases, spiritual God-loving individuals. This is the heritage that introduced me to the Christ and has driven me relentlessly to the scriptures. I love being part of that movement. I love those people.

There was a point in history, though. A point in most religious heritage where we thought we had figured out God and figured out how things ought to be. Most of our problems can be traced back to this point—the point where all things are figured out and any deviation is reflective of someone being wrong. It is sad, really. It is sad when any organization, be it a business or especially a church, confuses healthy criticism or differing views with disloyalty or not seeing things correctly.

My heritage is one that makes every attempt to distill every action we do back to a biblical basis or example. The notion and goal are sound and something that would make life incredibly easy if we were able to do just that. The difficulty comes when we run across a situation not directly addressed in the Bible. In my religious life, we would hide behind the curtain of we will speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent. If that were what we really practiced, all would be great.

Unfortunately, that is more what we have said and less what we have practiced. In my heritage, what really gets practiced is we will speak where the Bible speaks, and where it is silent, we have a lot to say. The result? A movement that has lived four decades past its last serious momentum. Most days are spent wishing tomorrow will be yesterday, and equating good preaching with burn in hell sermons from the late ’50s throughout the ’60s and dipping a bit into the ’70s.

We were the inventors of the original Fear Factor long before NBC turned it into a hit show. We had preachers who would advertise for gospel meetings in brotherhood magazines and tout how many responses and baptisms they were able to wrangle in their last outing. We turned a blind eye to involving ourselves on a mass scale with the larger set of humanity and evolved to a Field of Dreams mentality. We built our churches with fan-shaped auditoriums and fixed seating designed for one purpose and expected those looking for truth would magically walk in our doors.

Sound harsh? Perhaps it is. I subscribed to this brand of Christianity for a long time. Now I’m just tired. I’m tired of thinking that existing is the same as success and that activity equals progress. I’m tired of relegating the great commission to making a large donation to World Bible School or having a yearly Missions or Harvest Sunday contribution dedicated to world missions—all while refusing to be relevant in the communities where we live.

We have become disconnected, especially at home. We have trained the communities around our buildings that they are welcome to come worship with us as long as they agree with us. We have trained them that we have a benevolent ministry where those in need can come and be evaluated to see if they are worthy to receive a bag of canned goods. We have trained them that we will establish works in some of our inner cities and throw cash and gifts and food their way, but they need to learn to behave if they visit the home congregation.

All this occurs while our congregations are on life support, looking for the latest program that will rouse the membership into a bit more involvement. Members’ marriages continue to crumble, gluttony is regularly practiced but never confronted, gossip runs rampant, and any net gains in membership are usually due to those who got mad at another congregation nearby. Add to that the all too typical chronic giving problem that causes the congregation to operate behind budget for much of the year, which leads to the months of November and December for catch-up contributions.

Now include the wildcard of members who have made it their business to be the critics of anything said or done in a congregation (so they can stand for truth), and you have the perfect storm of churches who have a maximum capacity to only do what has been done, thus making them irrelevant in today’s society. There is rarely a shred of new or innovative thought on how to be relevant, and when some brave soul steps forward with ideas on how to do so, they are viewed with suspicion and questioned about their agenda.

If you are a member of any church, you know some of this likely hits your place. And be forewarned, nondenominational brands are not immune. There is a point where the novelty of your latest worship band or skits start to be your only key differentiator, and before you know it, your membership growth is driven nearly 90 percent by people leaving denominations who are looking for a more meaningful worship experience. The impact on the unchurched in these cases is likely very small.

Why does this all point to us being disconnected? Stand these markers of current religious movements in America up against the Great Commission of Jesus, and it becomes pretty apparent. Much of this book will be focused on making the followers of Jesus relevant again. Note that I did not say to make Jesus relevant, because as you will see, he is relevant in every generation, era, epoch, and society, regardless of what is happening. That is the beauty of the gospel—we serve a relevant savior. It is his followers that need a kick in the pants.

Consider the words of the Great Commission:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18b–20, NIV)

How simple. How straightforward. Here is how it reads today after church people have gotten hold of it:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations through whatever proxies can be supported through writing a check, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit if your flavor of religious movement still feels baptism is important, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you based on your interpretation and whatever you think is correct. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Again, harsh? Possibly. You can call me wrong and that is up to you. If that irritates you, it is probably because there is some truth to the interpretation in your case, and nobody likes to be called out.

In this case, I am calling myself out and anyone else who has spent time shaping the simple, beautiful words of Jesus into whatever we want them to say. For the rest of this work, we are not going to focus on points of disagreement. There has been plenty of that. We will, rather, focus on how to reconnect with a society that is dying, to better understand that society, and to show today’s culture how we serve a savior that is 100 percent relevant today.

Incidentally, there is a Great Omission from this scripture. Did you see it? Go and make disciples of all nations and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Both phrases have two glaring omissions. Jesus did not say how to accomplish either of those. The significance is not lost on me, and I hope not on you. A God who can be Leviticus-specific when he wants to be, turns around and assigns the greatest mission in the history of mankind and chooses to leave out the how. It is brilliant, yet we struggle with it.

The message is not changing. He was very specific on what to teach. He just left out the how which gives us the ability to share an unchanging message in relevant ways, regardless of time or culture. It is just too bad most churches don’t get this message. Instead, many have chosen to inflict the handicap of thinking we figured everything out, which means the message only stays relevant for the period of time that matches our figuring it out.

Let’s get specific. Does your church still have a Wednesday night gathering? How about Sunday night? Why do those still exist? Is there anything wrong with them? Of course not. They had a reasonable basis and a cultural reason for even starting. Have they outlived their original charter? Most likely. Has your church tried to revitalize one of those? Say, Wednesday night? Probably. Has it worked? Are those meeting times growing? Would you call your Sunday or Wednesday night gatherings life-changing? Do they make a difference to your community?

I have seen multiple cases where churches I have attended claim to be breaking from the mold by doing something different on a Wednesday night. Months later, after the committee designated to think different had banged their head against a wall and endured criticism from members or church leaders, the attempt fizzled. All we had in the end was another coat of paint on an outing that, for this generation, was a guilt trip.

When we look in the mirror and are honest, we have to admit that we have done much of this to ourselves. The change must start with existing members, and leaders of churches have to grow a backbone and stand up to those members who are unwilling to budge. Too many church leaderships (whatever your group calls them; in my world, Elders) have chosen to make their mission as leaders to be peace in the pews. The result is a church castrated of