God calls Christians to share in his mission. Remarkably, the gospel promises not just that we are reconciled to God in Christ, but that we are given the message of reconciliation and we are made ambassadors for Christ. That is a remarkable gift. That means that we, like God, are called to love people where they are. It means that we, like God, need to communicate with people where they are.
We are called to love people where they are. We need to communicate with people where they are.Communication and love, though, do not seek to simply affirm or connect with people as they are, but to reach them where they are, that they might be brought closer to God. Relevance is not the ultimate value. Clarity, presence, and trust – these are missional values.
Relevance ought not be a high value precisely because our goal is not somehow to be popular. Our goals are to be clear, to be trusted, and to bear integrity. It is not to dishonor or disparage the gospel by the way our lives adorn it or fail to adorn it. Rather, we are called to speak a gospel in ways that people can understand. Someone cannot understand the ways in which the gospel challenges them unless it is clear enough for them to realize that they are being addressed with a word that calls them to a very different sort of life.
