being revolutionary versus being cool

Don't know if you guys are familiar with Blue Like Jazz writer Donald Miller. Check out one of his quotes from an interview:

"I attended the Dove Awards and was brokenhearted. I saw all these beautiful Christians, wonderful people, with this wonderful, revolutionary message of Jesus, who, instead of saying, "Look, fashion doesn't matter, hip doesn't matter," were saying "World, please accept us, we can be just as hip as you, just as fashionable, only in a religious way."

Interesting insights. Having started my journey with Christ through a seeker-sensitive church, I received a number of philosophical seeds about how we need to provide a "culturally-relevant" alternative to the traditional church. Over the years my journey has drifted away from that into conservative/holiness waters, then postmodern concepts that rethink it all, a summer home in the Emergent Village, and somewhere back toward the basic tenets of the Apostle's Creed. In all that time I have asked the same question - is it possible that we are on the verge of seeing something healthier in the Church than what we're currently doing?

Specifically related to Miller's thoughts, what does the Gospel look like for people who are tired of trying to be cool inside the church community? How do we reach those who are tired of trying to fit into the alterative ultra-hip mold we've created in the church (or at least the one we think we've created)? Is it time to become a traditional, KJV only type church? Or are we swinging around back to the kum-ba-yah style of music?

Or maybe... just maybe... we can all be who we are while we journey together toward discovering who we really are.

Science says you can stretch the DNA of an animal - merge one version of a dog with another and you get a "mutt." What you can't do, though, quite so easily is change the DNA of something - even that "mutt" is still a dog. It takes an outside source that has enough of an "in" to your current DNA with enough "out" - the difference to be something else - to begin creating new variations of life.

Maybe the local church needs to stop stretching to be cool and realize the best way to be relevant is to be authentic...

maybe it starts with us realizing the divine DNA buried beneath the layers of trendy clothes we keep piling on.

That sounds like a revolution to me.

"Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."(1 Samuel 16:7b)