Brief thoughts on ‘Hipster Christianity’

My dear friend and former college roommate recently shared an article in Converge by Brett McCracken. (Thanks Rizmo! You’re the bomb.) McCracken is the author of Hipster Christianity, a book that investigates the convergence of a trendy subculture and a worldview-lifestyle that has existed for millennia.

Read the article here.

I thought it necessary to respond to this article because I myself am interested in both of these movements that are shaping our culture — because we, in turn, will shape how each of these movements, well, moves.

Also, I have recently gotten fairly involved in a church that has a particular approach and style, and from the very beginning has factored in things like social media, graphic design, brand identity, and web design as significant to accomplishing its (God-given) goals.

So what does this mean for me?
Am I making a mistake?
Is “trendy church” bad?
Inherently?

Or are “non-trendy” churches bad or failing?

I’m convinced the answer to both of these questions is, in the famous translated words of the apostle Paul, “certainly not!”

McCracken’s article made me wrestle with how I have been  treating the form and the content of the gospel through the church — as well as how other churches I’ve been involved in have approached, well, their approach.

Here’s the thing.

Bad form can distract from the gospel as much as trendy form.

Form without can be even more detrimental to a community.

Now bad form and bad function — bad, but no church is too far away from a miracle of God, eh?

This morning on my Instagram (I know, I use Instagram. #sorrynotsorry), I found this post from a Christian, and coincidentally self-identified Conservative, feed:

I also happen to have a Windows phone. #windows #winning

At first, I didn’t like this post. It glorifies small churches over large churches into what I think is a false dichotomy. Not all small churches — even ones that preach the gospel — are deeply rooted in their congregations. And not all big churches are necessarily super shallow social clubs.

Both small and large churches can be effective at getting the whole gospel to resonate with all people. Indeed, they both need to be, if any of them are to accomplish the commission they were given. Isn’t that why we need all churches to band together and be the body of Christ in their own local communities?!

If you’re gonna reach the world with a message, it’s gonna be hard, and fallible people are going to distort it or share it for the wrong reasons. But you better have all hands on deck and seek unity, sound doctrine, AND effective organization like the dickens. But especially unity.

(Unity has its way of ironing the other two out. It’s when you’re isolated that you stray from sound doctrine and aren’t effective. Unity is also what Jesus prayed for until he was bleeding out of his pores [Luke 22:44]. So. There’s that.)

So what is the right way of doing things?

I think it really depends on the heart (as always). If you’re trendy and elitist, that’s not pleasing to God. If you don’t strive for excellence, though, especially in carrying the most important message in the world, I think that’s also an underestimation of how God wants to reveal His contagious excellence of character (Psalm 33:3 comes to mind).

No matter how effective you are at getting people in your doors, if you aren’t doing it with integrity, God’s not gonna fly with that.

(My spiritualist friends would put it this way: “Karma will come back to bite you.” But by karma, they are really unknowingly speak of God’s justice and omniscience and concern for your character.)

And remember, kids, it’s not about what your community thinks of you. It’s that God is glorified and revealed — accurately, personally, and intimately — in all the nooks and crannies of every nation, family, group, heart, and subculture.

And yet, such a huge mission requires an excellence in the church, as an organization, that far exceeds the excellence of the best local and international businesses of today.

So what does this mean for your local church? Where is it scoring? Where are you scoring? How can you rely on Jesus more to empower you to get over your fears and disillusionment and apathy? How can you rely on Jesus to work even beyond what you could do in all your fearlessness?

As I’m moving forward in the church I belong to, personally, I’m going to rely on Jesus to help me live in this tension between striving for excellence and being radically inclusive with who I love and invite into my spiritual family. I’ll strive for what Paul calls “the most excellent way” — and that is love.

We must all keep in mind that there are no second-rate Christians. No matter what church you go to. No matter if you have nunchuck skills and bowstaff skills (that’s a Napoleon Dynamite reference for you non-hipsters I’d like to include in on my allusions).

So be excellent to each other.

Keep calm and party on, dudes. (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure)

No matter your education, you talents, your intelligence, your age, your wallet, whatever.
We all have a part.

We all have an absolutely necessary part in God’s plan.

And now just “all of us” in a general sense, but YOU.

God made YOU uniquely to do what only YOU can do, and nobody else can.
You’re limited.
You’re weak.
But God’s strength is made perfect through YOUR weaknesses. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

So let us offer all of who we are — strengths, weaknesses, and our whole human selves —
to make church a place where people meet Jesus
and are radically transformed
by His inclusive, excellent love,
which lasts forever,
is always relevant,
and is like nothing else in this world.

Are you in?

Other Questions

1) What were your thoughts on the article?
2) What were your thoughts on my analysis?
3) What challenged you based on your personal situation and heart?

Further Reading

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'”

~1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Photo by Joel Bedford