"Connecting to the Culture"

on December 07, 2011 by Walt Dilg

"Connecting to the Culture"

    I was treated to an evening of threatre this week at the La Jolla Playhouse.  They are running the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's revival of "Jesus Christ Superstar."  It was a delight and inspiring, well worth your time and money.

    "Superstar" first debuted on Broadway and then was made into a feature film in the early 1970s.  I was a young adult at the time and I clearly remember how the movie affected me.  The counter-culture movement was well under way and through this telling of Jesus' last days with its modern dance and rock music, the Gospel message reached a new audience.  For many of my peers and surely for me, it helped us see the "old, old story" in a new and accessible light.  Jesus came alive for us.

    Each generation is tasked with finding the way to communicate the timeless Gospel in a language or a method that resonates with their times.  An interesting email arrived this week that forwarded a youtube site that had a presentation of the Christmas story as imagined unfolding within the social netword of facebook.  A new and acoutic rendition of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" played in the background.  It was so creative - just how you might imagine such a thing happening nowadays.  As I was enjoying it, I thought how this might be an example of a vehicle that might get the attention of the new generation by using their communication style and language.  "Superstar" did that for my generation.  I am wondering what will do that for our new generations?