Relevance and Infection

If there's one thing that I don't believe in, it's "re-inventing the wheel"; i.e., if something is working and doesn't need improvement, don't mess with it. Lately, I've encountered a lot of discussion with friends (online and off) regarding the question: Is the Church relevant? This has raised a lot of questions with me, so I'm going to talk about it here.

Relevant means "pertinent; close to or applicable to the matter at hand". It comes from a Latin word meaning "to raise; to lift up". Using these definitions, I would like to re-phrase the earlier question: Does the Church have any bearing on life where we live it? Does the Church have anything to offer that redeems and resurrects our present state in the 21st century? These are legitimate questions; but the problem I have with them is that I hear them being asked mostly by Christians. This reveals a deeper problem to me.

We've been infected. Not by the Gospel, but by the "spirit of the age", "the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient" (Eph. 2:2). This spirit or mindset divorces itself from any personal responsibility for the problem. Jesus said, "YOU are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13); "YOU are the light of the world" (Matt. 5:14). The word "YOU" means US, you and me. In Luke 14, he connects this statement with His words about carrying your cross, being His disciple, and counting the cost (vs. 25-35). Could it be that if the Church is irrelevant to our world, it's because WE have become light-less and salt-less?