sometimes my wife reminds me that i am skeptical of religious institutions. she points out, correctly, that it is easy to be negative, harder to find the good in things. sometimes i don't really want to hear that. sometimes.

a great deal of my frustration comes from the perspective that i have fewer and fewer ties with the institution called church. admittedly this is not necessarily a good thing, but a fact nonetheless. i find it hard to imagine why i would attach myself to a sunday morning conservative experience. it's not that it's bad, it just doesn't resonate with what is happening in my life much anymore. it's an issue of relevence.

i have a friend named phil. he is very spiritual by nature but not even marginally a christian. he comes into the restaurant a few times a day, often with a heart that is full of his worldly issues. lori, my business partner, has developed a genuine rapore with phil and he will often unload his issues. he is looking for answers. one day i asked him if he had considered going to a church for those answers. he looked at me like i was from mars. church as a helping place was not even on his radar. it was as if i asked him if he went to moose jaw to have his questions answered. church is a complete non-issue for him, and many like him.

even though the rebellious part of me is amused, i find this somewhat disturbing. i spent 21 years of my life believing that i had an answer people were genuinely looking for. i tenaciously believed that i was using relevent and cutting-edge methods to "reach" those people. by almost every church standard i was on the ragged edge of innovation, firmly convinced that people would want that experience if i could only get the message out.

last week i was listening to cbc (ya i know...) and on "the age of persuasion" the narrator said something like, "people consider becoming a pastor about as relevent as (insert your most idiotic/non-relevent career choice here). the show was about how churches are using media in an attempt to attract followers. names like saddleback and billy graham were tossed around. one commentator argued that these icons were nieve and stupid; that competing for souls by media was using a medium intended to entertainment - thereby convincing us all that religion was just another trite show. the end of the show left me with the impression that according to the secular media, church has become so non-relevent in canadian society as to be viewed as a cult or a cruel joke. people no longer consider going to hear old music and a long-winded speaker a destination of choice early sunday morning. disturbing.

i am unsure of the answers, but seemingly too long we have been shuffling deck chairs on the titanic, hoping to somehow tweek on the next gimmic, the next 'wave' and suddenly be in the vanguard once again. maybe those days are gone forever, at least in secular canada. yet every month we kick off another 'same old same old' church plant or service that is oddly familiar to the one down the street.

some of my trendy church friends kick around the term "relationally relevent". what if that term meant doing something vastly different that we have thus far? what would that look like?