How Relevant is Relevant?
I read it cover to cover. I do. From the most thought out, well written articles to the obvious last second fillers. And I look forward to every issue. I listen to the almost unlistenable podcast. Which I might add keeps me listening. Weird I know. But I love it. And at the end of my relevant day, reading my relevant rag, working my relevant job, why do I feel more irrelevant than I did the day before?
Then it hit me. Because of my age, because of my place in life, because of my *cool church*, I feel like I am more “relevant” than those around me. Almost to a fault. I get all cocky and crap. And that is not relevant at all. That is pretty arrogant.
Behind all the paisley art work, all the grunge font, all the ads for social justice, all the indie too cool for me music, lies a reader who hides behind slogans of “relevancy” in search of true identity.
What the hell did I just type? I just reread it and it only makes a little sense. Let me piece it together a bit more.
We need to be careful. Just walk a bit lighter. Because sometimes we can come off a bit pretentious. I mean honestly. When my daughter is 18(she is 3) and reading her cool Christian rag of the moment, she will remember me sitting in my Diesel jeans, typing on my Macbook Pro, in the corner of some indie coffee shop, thinking there is not much relevance to me. I mean what are they going to call their magazine? More Relevant?
So. In the mess of this post, in the mess of my mind, I can find a few solid things.
1. Relevant is a good magazine.
2. Reading Relevant does not make one relevant.
3. We are probably a lot less relevant that we care to know.
4. I am going to Godaddy right now and buying Morerelevantmagazine.com
Now I’m off to listen to some K-OS while I smoke my hookah.
What defines Relevance?
Los
Technorati Tags: Relevant Magazine
I think what defines relevance is not creating our own stereo type and taking ourself out of the secular world. For example “christian” music takes us out of secular light by seperating our music for what???
So we can have clean lyrics or or words like God or Jesus, the Cross or Salvation. By doing this not only are we building a barrier from the world, but music becomes filtered and instead of talent you get a “good message.”
I was thinking of the “inferior” comment that was made by that comedian Bill or Bob or somthing like that and after some thought I beleive that he is right, or at least his initial though is…
When people wear clothes such as Not Of This World how are secular peeps supposed to take.
Or lame bumper stickers like :
“Not perfect, just forgiven”
…seriously christians as a whole need to think about our aproach the world, and their perception on us, and I agree with you Los, reading Relevant Magazine will not make one relevent, it will just make us feel better and hide the fact that we are ignoring the world!
Relevant is.
1. Not worrying about whether you are relevant. (Kinda like being cool. If you ahve to define it, then it is not cool.)
2. Not titling your magazine by the name Relevant. if something is relevant, is just IS.
3. Realizing that what is relevant today is not relevant tomorrow. Examples- Z Cavaricci, Spandex pants, disco music,
4. NOT wearing glasses and hair like the people on the cover of Relevant. You WONT be wearing that a few years from now. Guaranteed. Especially you since you have no hair.
5. When you are on your death bed or sick in the hospital with some terminal illness, the most relevant thing will be your family, your kids & how much we invest in other people. After that, nobody’s heard about a relevant tombstone.
6. I’m thinkinf of something relvant to write, but I’m runing of out of thigns to say.
I’m watching some cheesy dancing program on either Univision or Telemundo.
Let me tell you, the concept of REVEVANT is very different from one culture to another.
Those homies are in a whole different world of RELEVANT.
kirk cameron and ray comfort are way more relevant than any of us here.
well put, pitt. deep post, Los. I love it.
I think the most relevant thing we can do is realize how irrelevant we are.
Christ is always relevant. In what ever shape, form, weird color of hair or whatever we express ourselves in, its the Spirit within us that makes anything at all we do relevant.
I’m relevant when I’m setting up equipment for an outreach, but not when I’m sitting at a coffee shop checking email. I think its more what we do for the Kingdom than who we are that makes us relevant.
What you trying to say about my coffee Ronnie? Just kidding. Great points. Keep it coming.
Los.
You have nailed it that Relevant Magazine is more about pretension than relevance. It’s just another badge for the Jesus Cool Club.
(Yeah, like, I know I’m like this Christian guy an all, but, like, I’m not like THOSE Christians you’re thinking about. I’m cool. Really. Just like you. And a Christian. But don’t forget I’m cool.)
I got my Jesus Cool on. How about you?
Relevance according to Christians nowadays is.
Starbucks Coffee (faceless corporate gian)
Leadership Books (Since most of them want to be Steve Jobs or Bill Hybels)
Relevant Magazine with Gen-X graphics
Dressing like Ed Young (wow)
Conferences. (all kinds of them)
Jeans & T-shirts
Cool Graphics
A passion about world injustice (even though they live Des Moines, Iowa)
Anything Bono says (Every worship leader wishes they could be Bono)
More Conferences (Mostly in Texas or South)
Blogging (Wordpress, not blogger)
Macs (gotta have the latest one)
Being hip & young (or not so youg and still try to be hip) See Carman
Multimedia & lighting
Cover Songs in services & Rock & Roll (even though most, except Sandals and a few others are very poor renditions of the songs) sung by conservative middle aged suburban soccer moms.
Carlos,
After reading your blog for a few months, I predict that you will go through a midlife crisis with huge depression in, give or take, three to five years.
This will be a time when, like most of us who have gone through questioning stages, family, church, God, eternity, relevance, worship get to the end when we realize that everything is exactly like the book of Ecclessiastes says- that there is nothing new under the sun.
During this time, we are just about to hit our 40s, it HITS. For a Christian, especially for a worship leader, everything comes crashing down. I know. Though I will remain somewhat anonymous here- let me say that i was a worship leader at a huge well-known church. I grew it from the ground up. It’s still there.
It just HAPPENS one day. It’s like the mortgage statement or those credit card bills you rack up during Christmas. Before you know it, some 25 year old kid looks at you on stage & you feel it. He thinks you’re dorky. That’s right. He’s got his (fill in the blank ) band playing on his iPod. YOU are no longer relevant. They will look at raps in worship as something passe- much like we might look at Vanilla Ice or Limp Bizkit, or Creed, or Petra, or Carman, or…. (fill in the blank from 5 years ago).
On top of that, Your kids no longer think you the cool either. They are texting boys & starting to getting in trouble. And THEN it happens. People start complaining to your church. We want other type of music. Let’s start a Gen Y service, or whatever generation is coming up next. Worship Wars (could it be possible?). Meeting with pastors about how this or that is no longer relevant. And then you start to realize…hey I am no longer relevant. I’m 38.
We live in a beauty/celebrity obsessed culture that values fame, money and youth as it’s highest values. This happens in the church too. Sad to say, but so true.
Then it becomes time to be real with ourselves, with God & with others.
You may think I’m exaggerating here, but let’s just say “I am coming from the future”, baby.
This is usually the time when you do one of four things.
1. Go into total despair, get a car you can’t afford, go into crisis & counseling mode like never before.
2. Do sometihng else besides lead worship at the church (think Michael Jordan playing baseball)
3. Go and join some Emergent type gathering and move to a commune with your family, smoking peace pipes.
4. Keep doing what you’re doing, but take off the “cool”. (see beginning of worship wars above.
hahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahaha]
Ya, how is that working for you now?
That is too funny!
At the risk of being irrelevant… why is this funny now (in 2010)?
This is my favorite “tried to be too relevant” feature on a NYC gossip blog.
http://gawker.com/news/blue-states-lose/blue-states-lose-but-florida-loses-the-most-248452.php
To – A Worship Guy,
it seems that you are still there… ..depression that is.
if you were only to understand that a person in leadership is supposed to build up the young so one day they can be replaced. So if Carlos or any other leader does their job right they will welcome it. somthing that sounds like you didnt.
I don’t really want to add a comment about the topic at hand, I just wanted to tell you, Carlos, that your son made me smile and was my favorite the entire hour and a half of flip flops today.
Thank you for letting me love Losiah every Sunday.
OK. Great discussion. A few points from me.
Goo Coo JOO BOO Cachooo – Right on. Please unmask yourself here. You deserve the glory your comments are due.
Not from California – I never said Relevant was about pretension than relevance. Or maybe I did? But I also will state that there is nothing wrong with being cool. Just ask Flowerdust.
A Worship Guy – I won’t go as far as Pitt did, he seems to do fine on his own, BUT I will say this. No I am not 38 yet. But here is one thing that my dad taught me. You ALWAYS try and work yourself out of a job.
If you go into the gig knowing that you are not the end all be it for the organization then it will suck less. Right now I have 5 worship leaders ALL YOUNGER than me and some BETTER than me leading worship at my church. Today I was on stage while Matt Cash led the entire service. I already know that there will be another. So I plan on it and develop the crap out of the younger guys so when it is time, they shine. Like Cash did today. He DOMINATED. Sang “Shout unto God” better than I EVER will. And as long as I continue to develop leaders my relevance will stay fresh. Next week it won’t be Matt Cash. It will be Eddie Culin.
And as far as the mid life depression thing, I already have had like 5 of those. The Paxil has run out. And my counselor Bobby from CIFT-USA.com gets my 80 bucks a week.
Here are two nuggets.
1. What’s with all the anonymous comments people? Step UP!!!
2. A Worship guy brought up some good points about our profession. Although playing guitar on Sundays is like only 5% of my job, I would like to hear from some of the older folk on this. But maybe that is it’s own post. Some guys a touch older than me that are far more relevant than I and according to A Worship Guy should be going through a HUGE depression are Randy, Pat (OK not really that much older), and Justin.
All these cats are on top of their game.
Chime in fellas.
Relevance.
Keep speaking peeps.
Los
I think the new Bright Eyes record is going to be relevant. I can’t say for sure though.
There’s a rule in leadership: if you constantly have to remind the people around you that you’re the leader, well you’re probably not the man for the job.
I think that rule works for relevant, authentic, cool, hip, life-of-the-party, etc.
Don’t tell me you’re the life-of-the-party; be the life-of-the-party.
Don’t tell me you’re hip; be hip.
Don’t tell me you’re cool; be cool.
Don’t tell me you’re authentic; be authentic.
Don’t tell me you’re relevant; be relevant.
About the magazine: they’ve done a good job of finding their niche in the market and they print well-written work.
Since we’re talking about magazines, my favorite mag is Wired.
I think I have a man crush on Goo Coo JOO BOO Cachooo.
our communications department is subscribed meerly for the layout and page design inspiration. that’s it. i don’t think we actually read it.
If I dress a certain way to be hip or listen to specific music just to be relevant, then it will come across as inauthentic. Being myself is pretty cool. Personally, I hate the term “relevant.” When churches use it to describe their church or new service, it basically says that the church was never relevant to your life before. Sounds a bit gimmicky…like new and improved. If we are the hands and feet of Christ, loving people far from God, and helping those that have less than us, people will start asking questions. Why? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to help me? When people see our love, we can share that it stems from our love for Christ. That will make us relevant in the eyes of our community.
It’s funny, because it’s seems like a lot of us came down on the “bad side” of relevance just a few weeks ago when everybody was all about church staff wearing hip clothes.
And I think this just shows again that you should be relevant to who you are and where you are.
My dad is no less relevant to his peeps that I am to mine.
That is why he preaches where he preaches on Sundays and I sing where I sing.
Ah. The noise.
Los
I’ve been a “Relafan” for quite some time too. I’ve been listening to the podcasts for at least a year. And eagerly await the issues arriving in my mailbox.
Something that I think is worth pointing out is that they have said that the name Relevant isn’t about the Magazine or the people like us who read it. It’s more about saying the God is Relevant in all areas of our life.
In defense of the mag, I will say that it helps me out big time. The plain truth is that art (specifically music) is just too vast now. Relevant Mag is my way of seeing what music is out there. I’ve found two or three bands that I love through the magazine. As a writer/singer/player, these recent discoveries have made for some nice inspiriaton in my own art.
So so sad….
I’m 38
I’m a mom
I live in the midwest….suburbs, even
I’m a worship leader
I DON’T DO COVER TUNES
I DO read Relevant Magazine
Seems to me that Relevant (the magazine) has always had a fairly clear focus of purpose: writing about things that are relevant (the concept) to the 20/30something generation of people who are interested in faith and culture. Those who read it hopefully find things there which are relevant to real life. Do I? Yeah, a few things. Not everything. But I still really like it.
But the bigger question of one’s own relevance… for me the discussion requires definitions. Relevance is relative (put that on a wall somewhere, because it’s really profound). You are RELEVANT to people who are more or less like you in some way. You are EFFECTIVE if you impact those people’s lives in a positive way (in the Christian evangelical world, we’d want to add ‘if you move people forward in their journey with God’ or something like that). You are ARROGANT if you think the people you aren’t relevant to are somehow beneath you. Your COOLNESS is totally in the eyes of the beholder (bryonm said it well above).
Thanks, Los, for a good discussion.
Kim’s dead on.
The term “relevant” is meaningless outside a context. “Cool” is highly subjective. Often it is used, inappropriately in my estimation, as a synonym for “trendy.”
My aversion to Relevant Magazine (and I subscribed to it for 2 years and ready every issue I got) is that it seems to equate trendiness with relevance. So, perhaps it is relevant to those who aspire to the trendy interpretation of cool. That would not be me.
But calling your magazine Relevant is like calling yourself cool. As other posters have said, if you have to tell people you’re cool, you’re not. Ditto for relevance.
One thing I forgot in the list of definitions…. Authentic…. you are authentic when you are true to who you are. The opposite of this would be trying to change all kinds of externals in an attempt to be more ‘relevant’ to the people you perceive as being, you know, cool.
And thus we have completed the circle. Ahhh…..
Kim,
Hey, all i’ve gotta say is…Soccer Moms are HOT in their own ways. Relevant, fresh, hot mamas.
40s are the new 20s.
My friend at jonsampson.blogspot.com just linked over to this post of yours and i’ve got to say it’s hillarious, and totally make sense to me.
just be afraid when most relevant magazine comes out…that’s probably a sign of the anti-christ
I have never read Relevant Magazie cuz’ I’m a rebel!
I am also a Redneck, soccor, basketball, baseball mom who has a Lord of the Rings Tatoo, a blog named after Narnia and Lord of the Rings and I lead a book club for 30-40 something moms. I am so not relevant it isn’t even funny. YET, I still am very cool!!
I’m 40 and I’m cooler now than I was 10 years ago-because I stopped trying to be cool. Wish I’d read this before my last post. Grr.
(sorry Los for all the comments. I’m catching up on all your posts-because I do want to be cool enough for this blog)