Trendy Change and t T
his world moves at a fast pace. One day your Tommy Hilfiger jeans are in, the next day they’re out. It seems like there’s always a new trend in the media; things are always changing. In light of all this change, we look to Christianity for a firm foundation. But lately it seems like popular Christianity is just as trenddriven as secular pop culture.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 6
One big trend over the last fifteen years has been “See You at the Pole,” an annual prayer meeting around school’s flagpoles. Students gather at their high schools to pray for their friends, schools, and communities.There’s nothing wrong with praying for these things. In fact, we should all pray for them! One of the problems with “See You at the Pole” is that it has become the fashionable thing to do. It is now about grandstanding and making a statement to the media rather than praying. When you go to the website, you find t-shirts, wristbands and “pole passes” for sale.You also find a section that’s specifically for journalists, complete with a history of the event and pictures of the praying students to be used in articles. Perhaps this was never the original intent of the Texan students who first prayed for their schools one night in 1990. But however you look at it, it’s not just about prayer anymore. It’s about doing the “in” thing, making a splash in the media, wearing the right merchandise. One trend that seems to have lost its popularity is the WWJD bracelet.These bracelets, which stand for “What Would Jesus Do?,” were huge when I was in high school. It seemed like everyone had one, including me. But what does this really mean? The bracelets (and key chains and necklaces, etc.) were meant to remind the wearer to think about every
action and how Jesus would act in that situation.This is a pretty hefty task. Jesus, after all, lived a perfect life. How can you or I possibly live up to that requirement? We can’t! That bracelet didn’t motivate me; it just made me feel crushed by the law. I couldn’t live up to its standards. I don’t think anyone wears WWJD bracelets anymore; they’ve been replaced with accessories from The Passion. Christian music has its ebbs and flows as well. One major trend has been modern praise and worship songs. Some of these songs are doctrinally sound and good, but some of them are fluff and stuff, the same seven words eleven times over.Yet many churches have rushed to abandon traditional liturgies and hymns and replace them with praise and worship bands, multimedia video screens, and sometimes poorly written “updated” liturgies. However, according to one of the latest issues of CCM Magazine, modern worship is out and traditional hymns are back in, so I guess those churches are out of style again. Like secular pop culture, pop Christianity is awfully fickle. In the scramble to find the next best trend, the real concern of the Church—the Gospel of Jesus Christ—can get lost.This shouldn’t be
