The Ordering Principle

I’m going to use Acts 29 as an example because I watched this happen firsthand, but this applies to a lot more than just them.

In the 2000s, A29 was all about being edgy, watching UFC, chest-thumping masculinity, worship music pulled straight out of the Seattle scene. Then the following decade came a pretty massive shift. The tone softened. It became more polite, more therapeutically minded, more politically careful. And in particular, it became complicit in advancing a lot of the woke agenda.

But I’d argue Acts 29 never really changed, at least not at the level that actually matters. Not at the level of the ordering principle.

The only thing that changed was what younger people thought was cool. And that became the new packaging of Christianity that was marketed to a rising generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings.

And again, I’m using this group as an example. This has been a problem in American Christianity for a long time. It’s the worship of youth and youth culture.

Now take that as a rubric and ask yourself: have we really changed in the last twenty years?

I don’t think so. Not much. Not down in the engine room. The motor’s still rumbling the same way it always has.

There’s been a whole lot of talk about reaching young men. And I do think there’s a generation of fatherless, fog-bound men who really do need guidance, love, and discipleship. But if we appeal to them through the trends of the day, we’re just repeating what has failed every time.

And it will fail again.

One reason clichés stick is because they capture something timeless. And it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: what you win them with is what you win them to. I’ve found that to be more or less true.

The winning approach is the same as it’s always been: teach and apply historic, biblical Christianity to the people in front of you, in a way that equips them to live for the glory of God and the good of their neighbor, in the time and place God has put them.

That never fails.