I’ve come to realize that there are no less than three worlds that exist in my church—and perhaps as many as seven. There is the world according to grandparents—those who grew up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s; the world according to parents—those who grew up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s; and there is the world according to children—those who grew up in the 90s and the first decade of the 21^st century. This is an oversimplified version of the seven categories some sociologists would suggest.

The bottom line is the world that we live in—planet earth—has changed exponentially with each passing generation. Where does this leave the church? That’s a question I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

In the past week, I’ve heard the prophetic voices of Brian McLaren, Phillip Jenkins, Kendra Creasy-Dean, and a few others speak about the future of Christianity—for American Christians and those across the globe. I caught McLaren at Campbell Divinity School last week and the others at Duke Divinity School this week. My head is still spinning a bit, but their voices are important ones to hear.

Thousands of clergy and laity are trying to make sense of where the church is today in the midst of huge cultural shifts, emerging technologies, and marked decline in churches of every denomination. Our task is no less than to seek to understand these new realities and wisely guide the church into a new day and context for being the people of God.

What I have learned is that no one knows exactly where we will end up. Things are changing so rapidly that we are compelled to learn all we can, pray all we can, and do all we can to be the presence of Christ in the only world in which we live. It often seems like we are trying to figure out how to be a single congregation that consists of multiple groups of people from extremely different worlds. But we do have a model.

We serve the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the essence of unity in diversity, threeness in oneness. As we keep traveling into the post-whatever world that is yet to be named, let’s not take our eyes off the one who continues to be the object of our faith and devotion—no matter how complex things are around us.

1 comment(s) so far...

Re: Worlds Apart? Three generations, seven catergories, but ONE GOD. Aren't we glad HE is in control? By Carolyn Withers on   10/9/2009 7:00 PM

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