At various times in my evangelical youth group upbringing, I remember looking at youth pastors or church leaders and feeling either endeared (by how nerdy and yet believable they were) or repulsed (by how phony their attempts to be "culturally relevant" often seemed). Looking back, it's very clear to me that the teachers and leaders I most respected and learned from were not the ones who were trying to be "cool," but rather the ones who were honest about who they were and willing to learn about who I was.

But I don't begrudge any youth pastor for trying to be cool. We all try to be cool. We all want to be insiders rather than outsiders. We want to be "in the know" rather than "out of the loop." It's a natural human tendency, as basic as our drive to want love or to conquer something. And because the temptation is so constant, it's easy to take this pursuit-of-cool mindset for granted and not see it for the negative, does-more-harm-than-good endeavor that it often is.

In his lecture "The ...