Let’s have some real talk about relevancy.
Lots of people want to be relevant. In my world, that would be churches, pastors, and believers, but it’s true in all types of arenas. But do we even understand what makes someone or something relevant? It surely isn’t being cool or trendy, because all of us have bought cool and trendy things on a whim that are no longer needed or useful, which makes them, you guessed it, irrelevant.
Some have confused relevance with only saying good things, but if I’ve got food in my teeth while we’re talking and you never mention it, you didn’t help me at all by not saying what you thought might be a hurtful word. That would make you a lot less relevant to me (especially the next time I eat out).
I would suggest that the most irrelevant people on the planet are the ones who only tell us what we want to hear because relevance isn’t determined by how something is said or even by what is said. Relevance is determined by what I need to hear and many times what I need to hear isn’t what I want to hear.
[Tweet “Relevance is determined by what I need to hear and many times what I need to hear isn’t what I want to hear.”]The doctor who tells you to quit smoking is relevant.
The teacher who tells you to study more is relevant.
The coach who benches you because you aren’t playing up to your potential is relevant.
The truth that God is speaking to you – no matter how you’ve heard it or from whom you’ve heard it – is relevant.
The most critical element in relevancy is the timing of what we hear, even more than the truth of what we hear. Think about it. Hearing that you could have beaten cancer if you had only stopped smoking 5 years ago isn’t relevant. It’s only relevant if you can do something about it NOW.
The good news? We can. The truth that God speaks to us individually and to our culture collectively is always spoken on time and for our benefit. It’s always relevant IF we receive it and act on it.
So let’s do just that.
