Sex, Drugs, Rock-n-Roll and the Gospel

October 17, 2007 8:40 pm admin Blogs

My brother-in-law’s new band, “We Barbarians” played at the Casbah last night. I’m kind of a rock-n-roll kid and enjoy going to shows. But I’m also a preacher and I don’t know too many preachers who enjoy going to dirty bars full of smoke, drunkeness, scandalous women, and music so loud that you feel the wind of the bass on your face and it leaves your ears ringing until the next morning. That is good times. I hadn’t been to a show in a while since my wife is 9 months pregnant with our daughter and people give pregnant ladies wierd looks when you’re hanging out in a bar. The whole experience reminded of the importance of understanding culture and being able to work within it for the sake of the gospel.

Some ministers wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar. If Jesus were walking around San Diego, I’m not sure if you would find him anywhere but bars. Now, I know going to shows and bars is mainly a mid-twenties thing unless you are forty still acting like you are in your mid-twenties…so for you guys, yes I’m sure Jesus would hang out at the bingo centers too. But the point is there is a certain style, and language, and culture we must learn, appreciate, and enter into in order for the gospel to make sense and be heard. I had few conversations with people who were not Christians and I realized that when I talk to people who are not Christians and who are rock-n-roll kids in a bar, I completely change the way I talk and the subjects I talk about.

This is the incarnational model of Christ, who entered the time and history, and went to the places people did in order to reach out. In that he gained a common experience of life that becomes a building block to speak about the gospel. With beers in hand, me and Johnny have something in common, our enjoyment of Jesus’ first miracle, alcohol. So on a certain level Johnny accepts me and immediately and we have something to build relationship on, that will hopefully bear fruit to talk more about life and the life of Christ at work in me either on that night or on another day.

The danger is reaching out to the point where you sell out, where you go to bars or bingo solely for the pure fun of it with no gospel purpose or hope in mind and you end up drunk, rich, or poor and Jesus is left in the dust. The Christian should always be looking for an opportunity for a “door for the word” of the gospel to be opened as Paul says in Colossians 4:3. So let me challenge you, who are you trying to lead to Jesus? When was the last time you brought up the gospel to a friend? When was the last time you invited someone you know to church and talked about it with them afterward?

- Pastor Duane