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, Prophetic Untimeliness, page 15

In my opinion understanding Guinness' plea will determine whether missional (emerging, contextualizing, whatever title you use) churches are "successful" 15 years from now. If they uncritically pursue relevance or "coolness" at the expense of faithfulness we will be having the same dismissal of the seeker-sensitive movement.

What Guinness is saying in this book is that being faithful to be biblical gospel will bring about our relevance. Here is a question for you...is Guinness' quote at odds with this quote by Stetzer?

"It may sound uncharitable, but we do not mean it to be so. But...many will say that theses shifts, and a book like this, do not matter. They are convinced if you just 'preach the gospel' and perhaps 'love people' that your church will reach people. They are wrong, and their ideas hurt the mission of the church. Communities across North America are filled with churches led by loving gospel preachers--most of whom, if statistics are true, are not reaching people."

Ed Stetzer, Breaking the Missional Code, page 14

Ed Stetzer has linked to a quote from Rob Zinn. Find the story here. This is one of the quotes:

"Jesus gave a commission to His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations," Rob Zinn, senior pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, Calif., said in the convention's annual sermon. "We are a denomination that talks a lot but does little when it comes to evangelism... "Folks, what you did in the '40s and what you did in the '50s isn't going to win this culture to Jesus," Zinn said. "One of the things we are losing right now is our kids." While Southern Baptists must never change "the man [Jesus], the message [the Gospel] or the mission," they must be willing to change methods like the kind of music used in worship if they are going to reach a new generation in a changed culture, Zinn said. His voice cracking with emotion, Zinn said: "My heart is bursting for a generation of people who are lost and dying and going to hell. It's not about you. It's about Him [Jesus], and He loves them all."

Here is my question for you. My spidey-senses tingle when I read that quote. But just like Spidey sometimes I'm not sure why they are tingling. Is it just gas? For the life of me I can't put my finger on what rubs me wrong in this quote. Can you?