The Hipster Nativity

This past Christmas, I stumbled upon something pretty interesting on the internet. It was a nativity scene, but full of hipsters. For those who are not as familiar with the word ‘hipster’, Dictionary.com defines it as: a usually young person who is trendy, stylish, or progressive in an unconventional way; someone who is hip.

Essentially, it’s a group of millennial look-alikes in the place of the traditional nativity characters. Joseph is wearing skinny pants, rolled up at the ankle with a blue denim shirt, a stubble beard and a really thin mustache. He’s holding what appears to be an iPhone taking a selfie of him, his newborn and hipster Mother Mary crowded around the feeding trough Baby Jesus was in.

Mary had her latte in hand and is holding up the peace sign, represented by two fingers. Even the stable has solar panels on it. You may be thinking I’m making this up, but I assure you, at $130 you can purchase this exact set.

The three wise men and the shepherd were also there. The wiseman had his skinny jeans, combat boots and iconic headphones in his ears, as he was shepherding his flock of sheep with ugly christmas sweaters. The wise men were actually Amazon Now delivery men riding segways. One with jean shorts and hipster framed eyeglasses, the other two wearing skinny jeans, bow-ties and fedora style hats. 

This is both funny and creative, don’t get me wrong. But it’s caused me to remember that the story of Christ doesn’t need to be changed in order to be impactful. The story is still the greatest stories of all time, and the next generation doesn’t need a more hip version of the gospel in order to hear it.

But creativity can be sprinkled into our telling of that story to make it enhance the natural flavors that already exist.

When we’re talking about using creativity, technology or media to enhance the flavor or appeal of the gospel, it’s important for us to remember the context in which we’re adding this creative salt to the story.

Have you ever been to a restaurant where you can taste all the salt that was added to your steak or side dish? It’s like a clump of salt never got spread evenly, and you all the sudden get a bite of pure bitterness? That happened because there was so much salt in that one spot, that the salt itself overpowered the taste of your food and began to take center stage.

Our creativity can never take center stage in our worship environments.

Our creativity can never take center stage in our worship environments. Because we weren’t called to bring the message of entertainment or a wow-factor to the ends of the earth, we were called to bring the name and fame of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

This is a snippet of Luke’s Newest book, he’s currently writing, expected to be released this fall. For more like this, please make sure to join our mailing list so you can be the first to know about the full release! Click here to join.