Friday, February 06, 2009

What is Relevance?

"I want to say things that are really significant for your life whether you kow they are or not. My way of doing that is to stay as close as I can to what God says is important in his word, not what we think is importance apart from God's Word."

-John Piper, Finally Alive, p. 100.

Being relevant is not about addressing the issues that people think they need to hear about. True relevance is addressing the issues people need to hear about whether they think they need to hear them or not.

4 comments:

Dan Rolfe said...

Your posts are really tempting me to buy this book.

You could help me resist temptation by expanding them to include the whole book...

Mark Redfern said...

Dan,

Yield to temptation, brother.

Mark

pastor justin said...

Mark,
I didn't know you still read my blog.
What are you doing these days?

Mark Redfern said...

Yes. I am still checking in. Sorry I didn't name myself among the unnamed in your previous post.

The thing that keeps me coming back is, strangely, we think so much along the same lines in terms of what to blog. In fact, I have often thought before posting something, "I bet Justin Childers already has it." And, sure enough, you usually have. And, I am served so well by the various quotes from books you string across your blog, your helpful summarizing of what you are reading, and the many excellent recommendations.

Right now, I am finishing up my M.Div at our church-based seminary and, the Lord-willing, preparing to enter the pastorate soon.

I would love to see a future post on what you have learned as a young pastor. Of course, so much of that comes out on this blog. Yet another reason I check it. Plus, you challenge me to blow the dust off of my blog and get busy posting!

So, keep posting, brother. We are reading.