A suggestion to pastors

Pastors, I read your blogs and I listen to the podcasts. I've even been to a conference or two! I know that when we stand up on a Sunday and speak to our congregations the number one thing we would all like to see is the people going away from church living out a life that glorifies Christ from Monday through Saturday rather than making Sunday the only day God gets a nod from them. I've heard pastors speak on cultural relevance. Leaders in the church talk about engaging culture and being connected to cultural so people will listen.

May I make a suggestion? Get a job.

I know it's difficult to do all the work you do for church in the time you have. I realize you are busy and people have crises in their lives that you may be needed for, but if you really want to understand culture take a job for three months rather than attending any conferences in that time period. XXXChurch.com does a podcast called Dirty Little Secrets and in episode 55 found here on the right side they interview a pastor who wanted to see how he could be a follower of Jesus in the world and still do a horrible job. So he polled around for a bit looking for a bad job and eventually took the job of a cable bill collector. He went around to people who were delinquent on their cable bills to get the funds from them or terminate their cable service. He didn't run around with bibles and tracts but rather just loved people where they were and did his job. He found that people were everywhere that needed love and began to really understand what it meant by engaging culture.

Now you don't have to be a cable guy or even work for money. You can get involved with a shelter or soup kitchen. Maybe you volunteer at a teen pregnancy crisis center. Make sure you work somewhere that is outside the normal church world and see if it doesn't give you a better perspective just being a servant for a while.