A little blog from an upstart theologian that will do its best to exemplify Christ while sharing a thing or two along the way.
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| Preachin's Blog A little blog from an upstart theologian that will do its best to exemplify Christ while sharing a thing or two along the way. |
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Tuesday, April 12, 2005 Exactly what I'm talkin aboutRead this article This is exactly what I'm talkin about in relationship to ministry and the incoming generations. We are living in an "on demand" world that is getting more and more accustomed to having content tailored to meet their needs and their specific time tables. There is little separating us from entering a bold new future where the Church actually has the opportunity to greatly influence a culture who are pursuing spirituality at some level, engage them in a conversation, and show them how Christ is the true Way. How will we do this? By dropping the facades of Christianesque foolishness and embracing authenticity. We can do this by living incarnationally, that means being Christ to those around us. We can do this by realizing that our petty denominational squabbles have amounted to a bunch run off, irritated, backslidden Christians that have affected a generation to believe this: Twenty-six percent of young Americans call themselves Protestants, but the survey showed that 14 percent of the generation belonged to "other" kinds of Christian churches. This is amazing data, though not awfully surprising. There are tons of young people who are engaging the emerging church movement because it is demonstrating a type of Christianity that is authentic and not pedantic. Interesting too is that many within this emerging church movement are conservative in their theology, though extremely progressive in their methodology. I've been to some of these meetings where theological and doctrinal issues are discussed openly with one phrase populating all the conversation: "Where is it in the Bible?" I have my problems with some of the emergent church stuff out there because the leaders are stepping over boundaries which they should not, but I have seen this only several times. Okay, brass tacks, what am I stoked about here? I believe we have the opportunity to shape and present a vibrant Christianity, the Christianity that we all have inside of us and have seen demonstrated throughout the ages. We can do this and bring in a generation which will have a greater impact on the world than any generation before it. And this can happen easily if our foundational churches allow it to happen. If they see the path that is before us, though possibly one that many of them will never be able to tread, and they are willing to entrust us with the keys to the journey we can make this happen. Currently we have an older generation who have seen Christianity do some amazing things, seen the world enter some amazing places, but are holding tight the keys of leadership to the chests because they do not have the faith in the younger generation that a generation before them had in them. I'm not saying that overnight we need to see a transition from esteemed, veteran leaders in our churches to emergent, rookie leaders. I am saying that things can be done to help our churches out in this transition. Better we see a natural hand off than several years from now the now rookie, then leaders, scrambling around to pick up the keys from the moldering corpses of the past generation who have been laid to rest. The church is the pillar of truth in a world that is searching for truth. We have to be thinking five years ahead of the curve. The question to be answered is "will we be faithful to Christ in giving His church to the next generation?" a question which will have to be answered by deeds, not words. posted by Preachin Jesus | 8:28 AM | |
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