Today’s local newspaper ran an article from the New York Times regarding the use of a mature video game as a means of drawing young people to church. The article, “Thou Shalt Not Kill–Except In A Video Game At Church?” reads, in part:

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace. Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game, “Halo.”

Church leaders who support “Halo” say it has become crucial to efforts to reach their most elusive audience, boys and young men, on their turf.

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family said it was trying to balance the game’s violence with its popularity and the fact that churches are using it anyway. “Internally, we’re still trying to figure out what is our official view on it,” said Lisa Anderson, a Focus spokeswoman.

Read the whole thing and weep.

Has the gospel lost its power to draw and convict and redeem? Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Don’t we believe Him anymore? The legitimate concern about the droves of teens and young adults who are leaving the church has found an illegitimate solution through entertainment and being “creative in baiting our hooks.” It’s called “being relevant.”

Know what I think? In many cases, in many churches, the gospel of Christ has not been rightly preached. What has been presented may briefly excite or may make somebody feel good about themselves, but it does not have the power to change the heart. Only Christ can do that. If we begin with the felt need or desires of a person–whether young or old–and modify the gospel so that it appeals to them, we end up with a mess that is false and destructive. More importantly, it is dishonoring to Christ. Sure, kids like violent video games and all kinds of entertainment, and you’ll get them to come to play, eat your food, listen to your music and even a short inspirational talk. They’ll do it for a while, but they’ll walk away. Again. They’ll have heard nothing that speaks to the deep issues of their heart and offers them hope. They’ll have heard nothing that is worth dying for, which means that they’ve also heard nothing that’s worth living for. Only Jesus, as He has revealed Himself in the Bible, is worth that.

Since when does Christ need embellishment or modification in order to be relevant to our culture or any other culture from the beginning to the end of time? Of course we should be aware of our present culture and be timely–not trendy–in our response to it. We must realize how deeply we’ve allowed the therapeutic culture to infiltrate our thinking and theology and what is preached. (And what is not preached!) We must remember that the gospel of Christ isn’t meant to make us feel good about ourselves, but to make us holy. Whatever the church does must serve that purpose, and I’m afraid that all the striving for relevance has taken us off course.

By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant. ~Os Guinness, in Prophetic Untimeliness

How can we keep people in church, and how can we draw those who have left or never been there in the first place? How can lives be changed? Here’s a radical answer: by the faithful preaching of Christ crucified, risen, seated at the right hand of God, and coming again. By truly knowing the excellence of Christ ourselves and by living in faithful, deliberate obedience to Him. Then, could it be that someone might catch a whiff of the fragrance of the life of Christ within us and be interested enough to listen to the unadulterated Word of God being preached or spoken? Then they’d hear about something really relevant to their lives.