The coolness factor

Ed Young is the senior pastor of Fellowship Church in Dallas - a non-denominational mega-church considered one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Recently, Ed spoke at a pastor's conference and shared his opinion about how pastors should act and, specifically, the dangers and irresponsibility of using profanity.

At the conference, Ed made it very clear that many words should never be uttered by pastors. These includes the biggies (I would give examples here but don't want to offend you) and some not-so biggies - at least in my opinion. Ed doesn't use the words, "crap", "screwed", "hell", "damn", or "sucks". I'm not sure if he's ok with the popular replacement cuss words like "heck", "dang", or "fudge". He thinks the reason some pastors use naughty words is that they are "chasing cool". For example, when I say, "crap", Ed thinks that I'm just trying to maintain my relevancy in today's culture. Ed says that's a cop-out. He's certainly entitled to his opinion but my problem and the problem with some pastors at the conference is that Ed created his own benchmark and said pastors weren't cutting it.

Irony of all ironies...Ed is the poster boy for cool. He wears the coolest clothes, has the coolest hair, and doesn't the coolest things from the church platform. In fact, Ed became ultra-cool when he preached a message on sex and challenged married couples in his congregation to have sex every day for 7 days - whether one of the partners wanted to or not. Now that's cool and for everyone who agreed to participate, they became cool, too.

Here's what a Dallas blogger and frequent attendee at Fellowship said:

The fact is, one person's cool is another person's relevant. One person's relevant is another person's reality. One person's reality is another person's damnation. [With regards to profanity] I think it's more likely that younger pastors are using what Ed considers profanity because for their younger generation it's no longer considered profanity. That's my two cents.

I think we need to be very careful when we (me included) start telling other pastors how to be a pastor. Here are some nuggets of wisdom that I've picked up along the way:

"You are really supposed to do it this way."
"You really shouldn't drink."
"You really shouldn't go to "R" rated movies (unless it's The Passion of the Christ)."
"You are supposed to read your Bible every day."
"You're doing something wrong if your kids are out of control."

In Acts, we learn about a rabbi named Gamaliel who drew criticism by many Christ-followers about how and what he taught. Paul was quick to silence Gamaliel's critics, defending the rabbi's passion to teach. He said that God would judge Gamaliel - it wasn't their job.

Ed Young may think "sucks" is a swear word and be offended I use it but my grandmother would be offended by a seven-day sex challenge. Taking offense at another Christian's actions doesn't automatically mean they're in the wrong. It also doesn't mean everything is admissible (this isn't relativism 101).

Let's get worked up over the big stuff like sharing the Message with people who don't know about Christ, teaching them about grace, and showing them that's there's room at God's table for everyone.