Culturally relevant

Smash, smash, smash the guitar
Who made the music? Who is the star?
Smash, smash, smash the guitar
When the money changers go too far
Smash the guitar. - Smash the Guitar, One Bad Pig

I am not too sure how one of the pastors who lead our church would react to me revealing the fact that the sermon that was preached on Sunday reminded me of a song by One Bad Pig but it absolutely did. We were talking about the worship that takes place on Sunday mornings and the quest we have as a church to stay culturally relevant. Now there are a lot of nuances to that term and the wisdom of having cultural relevancy as one of the non-negotiables of our church body, but there was something that stuck in my head when I contemplated it: God has redeemed the guitar.

I am not sure when it happened but God has absolutely been using the guitar to focus minds and voices on Him. I do know that the music that often comes from (and came from) the guitar is (was) at best secular and at worst Satanic. Leave it to God to begin to turn that around and have people thinking about how they can build the Kingdom through the use of the guitar. Or bass. Or drum set. Rather than something to be feared I see the use of these symbols of our culture for Kingdom purposes as an extreme encouragement. A full 180° departure from their original purpose.

Yet, I think that I can identify with them to the degree I do because what He has done to them reminds me of what He has done for me.

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