ipod faith

OK I have to admit it, I love my ipod. Over the past 9 months that I've been a "user" it has been responsible for making me love and respect music for its power and beauty in a fresh, new, life-giving way. I love everything about it. I love making playlists, finding new stuff on itunes, listening to podcasts, even seeing what celebrities are listening to (on itunes, they post celebrity playlists. And I always thought Jennifer Garner was so hip -- but Justin Timberlake is on her playlist!? I'm so depressed). Anyways, I haven't yet posted my own playlist, but you might see that in the near future.

But my ipod has also got me thinking a lot about Christianity in the 21st Century. My generation (Generation X) and those generations younger than me are engaging in Christian faith in a new, different, and sometimes confusing way. Even current discussions and court battles like "intelligent design" theory and whether it should be taught in the classroom represents a modernist theological construct that puts things together logically, cognitively, and orderly.

To be honest, I think most of that sort of logical theological reasoning is lost on my generation. My generation is more interested in experience over cognition, relationships over rationalities, gray over black and white. Words and thought processes like "justification by grace through faith", although theologically accurate, don't carry the same punch and effectiveness with the next generation as they do with boomers and older. That is not because my generation doesn't care about things pertaining to faith (on the contrary, this next generation seems more concerned and interested in spiritual things than the previous ones), but because they operate in a different mindset and worldview than previously experienced. When teens say "I just don't get my parents", they aren't kidding! But maybe now moreso than other generations, cultural norms are shifting and ways of gathering and processing information are evolving into something completely different.

As the church, it seems we have two options. First, we can force the next generation to learn, process, and digest the Christian faith just like we did (or do). We can use the same words and explanations that worked for us in our upbringing and expect those we are teaching to learn like we want them to learn.

I don't think is a good idea on two levels. First, it doesn't work well. How many of us were driven from the church at an early age because we thought it was "boring, old fashioned, not relevant for me."? The truth underneath that statement was probably that it wasn't the message itself that was boring, but that the communication of the message (the style of the delivery) wasn't on the same wavelength as we were. It was trying to speak relevant words in irrelevant ways (irrelevant for the person listening). When we try to force people to learn like we do instead of like they do, we will fail at some level.

Secondly, it's not a good idea because it is not what Jesus did. Instead of speaking in the theological language of the day all the time, Jesus was notorious for creating earthy parables, easy for his listener to grasp hold of. He argued law with the lawyers, and spoke of crops with the farmers. He met people where they were at, in their own language, in their own context, in their own learning style. Jesus was as relevant as they come, and for us to do otherwise goes against his grain.

And so instead of forcing them to think and learn the way we do, we --like Jesus did -- need to proclaim the Good News in new and fresh ways.

That brings me back to the ipod.

I think we as Christians need to come to grips with an ipod kind of faith when we seek to proclaim good news to the next generation. The way it operates and its subsequent popularity can teach us a lot about how this generation wants to be ministered to.

First let me say -- What I DON'T mean by that is that to minister to the next generation, we need to get all high-tech, flashy, and just jump on the next technological breakthrough. Too many churches have done this to try and reach out to the next generation, and have remained just as irrelevant as before.

Instead, we need to hear from the culture how it wants (and needs) to receive the Good News that we the church have to offer. And the ipod is the cultural symbol (I believe) of our world today.

The beauty of ipods is that you have versatility, flexibility, portability, choice, and beauty wrapped up in a tiny, sleek little package. At the click of your computer mouse and the spin of the flywheel you can download individual songs off the internet (instead of buying the whole album), you can make your own lists of songs to fit your moods, you can avoid songs you dislike, you can experiment with new music that you might never try if you had to spend 17 bucks for the whole album. The packaging itself is a beautiful work of art -- the ipod feels good to hold, to work with, to look at. It isn't clunky or hard to understand. It is personal, sleek and intuitive. In some weird way, it makes you feel good listening to it. It is more than just a high-tech music box. It has a personality that adds to your life -- I would bet anyone that if someone from Apple read this, they would agree with me (at least that is the kind of product they are trying to create).

What does that say to me about what is important and effective for this generation of potential followers of Jesus Christ? First, we need to present a Christianity that is both grounded but contextual. All ipods (as far as I know) run off of the same operating system and are hooked into itunes as the platform for use. That is what unites us as an ipod community. Yet, every single person’s ipod is going to include slightly different components (i.e. music, podcasts, photos, videos) that identify and speak to its personal user. I would guess no two ipods have exactly the same information in them, just like no two humans have the same information in them. Each of us/them is entirely unique.

We need to see the church and Christian faith in this way if we seek to reach this next generation. Our common "operating system" is not the church, service style, or denomination, but Jesus Christ himself. He is the only operating system we need. He is what defines us, unites us, powers us, and personalizes us. Nothing else. Now, there are certainly common avenues through which we encounter Jesus (worship, Scripture, sacraments to name a few of the biggies). But this generation is less concerned about how we connect than that we connect with the spirit that unites us.

What does that mean for us? It means we need to let people be introduced into that relationship with Jesus on their own terms, the way they need to enter it. We need to offer a variety of avenues to allow people to enter personally, to try him out, and to not have to put all the same things in their religious system as we have in ours (things like music or worship styles, the same spiritual disciplines, or maybe even some of the same sidebar doctrines). We need to show them the power of Jesus (the operating system) by being relaxed and letting them experiment with him, and then let them personalize their experience of him for themselves. And even if they come up with a slightly different "usage", a different understanding, we need to let them be there in that place. Much like ipod users can learn from each other on how to get the most out of their pods, we might gain new insight into Jesus from those who are seeing him in a slightly different way than we are. When we take this less-dogmatic, more accepting posture, we free up the next generation to explore the faith, and we might even learn and grow ourselves through the process.

Now, some might accuse me here of setting up a sort of "supermarket" type of theology and Christianity, where you can just pick and choose what you want to believe and throw the rest away. That is not what I am saying at all. Certainly, many of the teachings of Jesus are tough words that create a cost to my life that I would rather live without. Some of them I would just as soon throw out -- but I can't because it is Jesus who has authority in my life, and not me.
The same is true in our ipod analogy. While there is much flexibility, the unit can only do what the unit is created to do. It plays music -- it can't drive my car or mow my lawn (unfortunately). And it plays music in one certain way (you use the flywheel, it's not voice operated, it doesn't read your thoughts, etc.) Like Jesus, it has its own self-defined parameters of what it is and what it is called to be. We can't just write those out of our personalized experience of Jesus any more than we can make an ipod do something it wasn't created to do.

But while we can't pick and choose what to believe, we can personalize our faith. Whether we like it our not, every one of us does it. In fact, I would argue that that is exactly how Jesus created us to experience him, in a personalized way. No one else in the world has the relationship with Jesus that I do (because of my background, personality, experiences, etc.). Jesus speaks to me in ways different than he will speak to you. He works on things in me that are different than what he is working on in you. Certain parts of faith that come easy for me might be hard for you, and vice versa. Faith is personal.

Yet, why is it so hard for us to let the next generation mess around with our worship services? Our understandings of Scripture? Our experience of spiritual disciplines? We need to ease up on each other and instead recognize that life and faith today are much more interconnected, complex, and experiential than the way we went through it before. What was once a fairly black and white path (you were born, went to the church your ancestors went to, experienced worship like we always have done it, were taught the catechism, etc.) is now very grey. People enter faith at all levels, with different mindsets, with different driving beliefs. I believe we need to be less concerned about those grey areas, and more concerned with fostering an environment that lets people experiment with Jesus in our midst. We need to move from asking "Do you believe the truth?" sort of questions, and towards "What is Jesus saying to you in your life?" sort of questions -- believing that the Truth of Jesus will become clear through the Holy Spirit to each individual. Certainly, we cannot make Christ do anything or say anything that he hasn't really done or said, but we give people the beauty of Jesus exploration, on their own terms and in their own personal way.

That is what I love best about my ipod. I feel like I am exploring beauty in my own personalized way. I feel like my world has grown a bit in these past 9 months and I have taken a big shift in the way I listen to music. It might sound silly, but it’s true.

I pray that Christianity today might be able to do the same.

AMEN