Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Hey, brother, let me tell you about Jesus … Hey, wait a minute … where’re you going?

Speaking the message of Jesus Christ to modern ears can be a tricky thing to do. In a lot of ways it sounds contrary to the things that we have been told are true. We are several generations deep into ideas like “there is no absolute Truth, whatever works for you is fine,” and, “There are so many religions, who is to say that there is only one way to God,” and “Science, facts, what I can see and hear, these are the things that are true and can be trusted, everything else is merely opinion.” Words like “Jesus,” “Church,” “Worship,” “Sin,” “Preaching,” and many others carry so much negative baggage that most people stop listening at the first mention of them. In fact, they think they already know everything they need to know about it, and they wish they knew less.

That’s a problem.

One way to solve the problem is to change the order a little.

Modern Truth Ancient Sound

I’ve been to this church. It’s a big beautiful cathedral with stained glass and solid oak pews. The choir is powerful and filled with hired singers from the city orchestra or ballet. The pipe organ must have cost 2 million dollars and it rumbles the building like a rock concert. Everything feels reverent and holy. It takes your breath away. The lectern is ornate and the preacher is wearing vestments as he steps forward to deliver God’s word.

Except he doesn’t. He reads a poem by Mark Strand, quotes some lyrics from Tom Waits, and gives a moralizing message that has references to his dog (or cat) and leaves everyone feeling nice. He (or she) tells them what they already know with a subtle (or not so subtle) smugness that celebrates pluralism, open-mindedness and complete lack of anything resembling absolute Truth.

Ancient Truth Modern Sound

“Ancient Truth Modern Sound” is the name of this blog, and it is also the ministry slogan of my church. I am the worship leader for CrossPoint Church in Katy, TX where I lead the congregation with a rock band. It is our goal to maintain the historic faith and teaching of Christianity while placing it in a modern context. There are many ways to do this, and we don’t think our way is the only way or even the best way, but we do think it is the way we should be doing it in our current time and place.

See the difference? The context for how we deliver the message is constantly changing, but the actual message (to the best of our ability) is unchanging. That is exactly the opposite of the “Modern Truth Ancient Sound” church I was talking about before.

Please don’t be offended if you go to one of those big pretty churches with the rockin’ pipe organ. Just send me your address, and if the printer ever accidentally gets our slogan backwards on some T-Shirts, I’ll send you one.