We are playing Marbles with Diamonds

In my time as a Christian one thing that has always bugged me is the ability some Christians have to concentrate on the irrelevant and miss the big issues. Now this will upset some of you and i know who you will be, it will also bring out all the old platitudes that get trotted out when this subject comes up, it's not meant to offend but i know some of you will be offended so i will apologise in advance for that.
A few weeks ago Pete Pillinger posted a link about" the questions the church is asking, but society is not" or something along that line and it got me to thinking, are we actually asking questions at all and more importantly are we actually relevant to the society we live in. As most of you are aware i'm blessed to have more non christian friends than christian friends and i really do thank God for that everyday. But something happened on Friday that got me thinking about how we as Christians are so dependant on having the title and for some the title is more important than the job description and doing the job. On Friday a friend called Matty introduced me to his daughters friend and called me the Vicar, she was shocked because her idea of a vicar was a collar, straight laced and a boring old fart and unfriendly (her words) where as i'm covered in ink, i smoke and i'm friendly(her words). During the conversation i had to try to explain to her that i was not a Vicar, not ordained, and not a dog collar wearer, but that i was a God botherer, when her eyes glazed over i realised something. When people come to us as Christians for help, they don't really care about what your title is, they want your help, they want someone who can give comfort and point to something different they want a friend i guess. So does it really matter in the real world if you are called a Vicar by non church people, they know i preach and as such that makes me a Vicar and to be honest trying to explain the ins and outs of ecclesiastical thought is not going to cut it as their eyes glaze over. Legally yes it matters for certain things but when the chips are down does it matter a flying fig what they call me, as long as i'm able to help them or point them to someone who can or better still point them to God.
This is the crux of the matter we spend a lot of time discussing trivialities, hymn books, structure and asking ourselves lots of questions that are really only relevant to us, they only matter to us and don't tend to matter to society at large. So do we carry on playing Marbles with Diamonds or do we/ can we become relevant to societies questions and stop the games? I'm sure we can i'm just not sure we have the desire to do so, and that will cut some of you. Thomas Eddison is a hero of mine, he was a scientist and an inventor, i'm an engineer and love the idea of Eddison working away but that is a blog for another day.