My wife watched the Tony's this year (I know it was a long time ago), so I saw part of it. I had heard of this musical called Spring Awakening. The music was written by Duncan Shiek (I am barely breathing...) and it was supposed to be incredible. It won several awards and I heard this guy on the Tony's talking about it as a groundbreaking musical because it was filled with rock music and was going to reach a new audience that musicals don't normally reach.
But is it? I haven't heard one song from it. I've never heard anybody really talk about it. I've never heard anything on the radio or internet from it. I'm sure it's out there, but I think it's just staying within the normal musical audience.
Church ministry is the same way. We come up with some new idea that really is just adapting something we've stolen from popular culture and we're trying to use it to update our ministry. We say it's going to make our ministry reach people that never before could have been reached. But does it? I think for the most part all it does is create buzz within Christians. We get excited about it, but it never really reaches out into the mainstream. Probably because so much of what we do is just a copy of what is already out there.
Nobody out in mainstream America is listening to the radio right now saying I love Kelly Clarkson's music, but I wish it talked about Jesus. If all we ever do is copy, then we'll never do anything significant for the kingdom of God. JM
