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Tonight I find myself sitting on my couch with my boy sleeping on my lap in a way that allows me to surf the net, read some blogs and articles and also write this little ditty. I hope he can’t see the computer screen though, I want to save his brain from the flickering mosaic of pixels this computer is generating that can potentially form and possibly misshape his little baby synapses. But that’s another blog… (thanks shane hipps)
As i read blogs and other Christian online publications I just realize how cheesy and cliché so much of the Christian culture and literature can be. But maybe that’s not all bad, right? Cliché doesn’t mean untrue, or unbiblical, heretical, or anything else that I would want to avoid as a follower of Jesus. I guess some times cliché is just saying what’s always been said in a way that it has always been said. Here’s the definition;
Dictionary.com :: Cliché
A trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse.
I think this definition hits at the reason why I don’t resonate with so much of Christian culture (which I would say is VERY cliché). This definition reminds me why I don’t want to be just another cliché spewing Christian.
Cliché is defined by being the unoriginal, by lacking ingenuity… that’s fine. It’s hard be “original” when your following a 2000 year old rabbi and a God who’s been around since before their was a before. Maybe original is overrated. But cliché is also defined by lacking impact. And in my experience and understanding, God is far from cliché in even the slightest of ways. God’s shadow has an impact! His presence, even in the most indirect ways, impacts everything it draws nears to, impacts in such a destructive way that nothing is the same when it has experienced the presence of God.
So yea, I don’t want to be cliché. And if impact is the measuring stick, I would say most of American Christian culture is extremely cliché. It has little too no impact on our culture and on our world.
So how do we as Jesus followers and proclaimers of the Gospel communicate a message that is thousands of years old in ways that impact people today?
NOT a new question, I realize that.
And most of times when people try being “relevant” they fail miserably and become either cheesy or just cliché. It seems this is a huge catch-22, right.
I don’t really have any answers but I think a lot of solution to avoid being just another Christian cliché lies in living. Living in honest, real, and engaged ways with culture and people.
We also might want to :: Avoiding the formula and engage our story (personal and communal). Avoiding the “right” answers and engage a fresh expression of our divine interaction.
I don’t know…
How do you avoid being cliché? How do you avoid lacking impact and instead radically following Jesus and impact your world with gospel?
DO ANSWER…
Grace and peace
Erik
January 13th, 2010 at 12:14 am
A million idea of “how to fight the cliche” are popping into my head. Maybe i’ll share some of these idea as the conversation unfolds.
Here’s one :: Can we fight the cliche by embracing the past, knowing the present, and receiving the future?
Thinking…
January 13th, 2010 at 3:10 am
Good thoughts Erik…..in three words, transparency, authenticity, and love.
In more than three words:
This topic is something that I encounter all the time while on my journey it’s quite bothersome to say the least. So many questions…..
Do you know how many people are turned off just by hearing the words Jesus Christ? I gave my life to Christ four years ago and I can honestly say it still rubs me the wrong way. It’s because of this very “cliché” topic/discussion.
The difference is I now know the Truth, I now know His love, now my heart has softened, and my eyes and ears opened. I am now “free will”ing to let God unfold my story. I can now see through all of the fake, manipulation, deceptions, failures, hypocrisy etc. in “cliché” Christianity. I’ve come to realize that “The Church”, the body of Christ, is not the problem….it’s really good, the real problem are the people IN the church.
The only way Christianity cannot be cliché is when the real story behind every individual is uncovered and spilled out into this broken world in the way God has intended it to, IN relationship.
The problem is this Christian “cliché” is coded with “religion” when it should be “relationship”. Because when there’s relationship, there’s an abundance of love revealed, THE love story of Jesus.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Thanks for you thoughts Adam. I think your on track for sure. So much crap has been produced by Christians who think they need to look perfect before the “world” instead of being honest and stepping into relationships.
I would guess that hypocrites often speak of the language of cliche because they’ve got nothing else to speak.
On another note… CONFESSION :: I think i am scared of being just another cliche. Of having little to no impact and fading into the shelves of your local Christian Wal-mart, i mean LifeWay book store or something.
Maybe the trick is not to worry about it.
But then if you say don’t worry about what do you say to all the people to are walking cliche? Maybe you don’t worry about them?
Rambling!
Grace and peace
January 13th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I try to avoid cliche by being myself & putting my own spin on things. Jesus grabbed peoples attention because he wasn’t cliche. He loved like no one else, and spoke like no one else (”like one who has authority”). The only way we too can speak as one having authority is when we speak the truth of God’s Word combined with the life that’s been transformed by the truth of that Word. My wife and I are doing some pre-marriage counseling and the other night I shared that I was virgin at 25 when I married my wife. That blew this couples socks off and I had their ear. Unfortunately, however to be authentic I also clarified that 1. I wasn’t pure when I got married as I had done plenty of ‘fooling around’ and 2. I had to explain that sexual temptation is still one of my biggest weakness and failure as a Christian. While this couple still thought it was incredible that I was a virgin, and they also appreciated my honesty and authenticity… had I allowed myself to be more transformed into the image of Christ in this area I KNOW that I would have set a much more impressive example that gives a life picture to the truth of God’s Word. I say impressive not to say myself, but to say here is a real person really changed by God’s grace. Not just another sucker hanging onto grace for dear life. Hope this makes some sense…
Matt
January 19th, 2010 at 1:06 am
All of this makes me think of a C.S. Lewis quote:
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
Honesty and understanding.
I tell my students all the time when writing and giving answers…”say it in your own words.” And it’s the hardest thing for them…they’re learning for the first time…so they’re not yet confident enough to veer from the words of the author or the text. They are much more comfortable copying exactly what is put in front of them. It sounds really smart that way, right? But when a child (or anyone for that matter) really begins to grasp a concept and have an understanding of the information presented…they have a confidence (or maybe even a surprised excitement) that they can repeat what they have learned in their own ways and bring an understanding that wasn’t there before.
All this to say…until we understand the reality of the gospel in our own lives…it’s really hard to replicate it to others in a way that veers from what we’ve all been told before. Henry Nouwen wrote a book called “The Wounded Healer”. I highly recommend it. It is a book that speaks of the fact that those of us who have truly gone through “it” (meaning pain, loss, questioning, etc.) can in turn authentically speak to others who have experienced the same things.
That’s the beauty of Jesus being so uncliche’…He experienced everything we experience in our own lives. He knew every temptation and every kind of suffering…I really believe that it was the way He was able to relate to us so well.