Category: Youth Ministry
Stop, Children, What’s That Sound?
My denomination is living through a paradigm shift that will give direction to the next 20 years of our existence. I think of it as our 3rd reformation. I’m done with “transformation” as a descriptor or process. Rather, I embrace evolution because it captures the essence of change necessary to adapt for today and tomorrow. Because I’m working through a paradigm shift here in Oklahoma of program ministries for k-35 year olds I read what others are noting as similar shifts in culture. I participated in an interesting twitter exchange about what it would mean to occupy Church in a similar way that people are participating in OccupyWallStreet. I’ve wondered where the religious voices are in this latest demonstration. My guess is that lawyers would advise caution so the government doesn’t alter their tax status. This is just another problem with our current tax structure. What we were really talking about is the evolution of Christianity and not institutional Church. We may be witnessing the evolution of what it self-government means.
Thomas Friedman, like David Brooks, is weekly reading for me and he has a good column addressing the evolution that is taking place around the globe. Here is a paragraph or two.
There’s Something Happening Here
Thomas Friedman | The New York Times | Oct. 11, 2011When you see spontaneous social protests erupting from Tunisia to Tel Aviv to Wall Street, it’s clear that something is happening globally that needs defining. There are two unified theories out there that intrigue me. One says this is the start of “The Great Disruption.” The other says that this is all part of “The Big Shift.” You decide.
Two master narratives — one threat-based, one opportunity-based, but both involving seismic changes.
The lyrics of “For What It’s Worth” identifies the “place” our culture, religion, economic system and politics is hovering, again.
“For What It’s Worth” (1966)
Buffalo Springfield
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Ideas & Problem Solving Stagnation
David Brooks, one of my favorites over at the New York Times, has an interesting look at the idea and problem solving stagnation of our time. It’s the problem with culture and Christianity right now. We are trying to use the same thinking that created problems to problem solve. For the new church start movement in my denomination that means you cannot grow our brand, if that is the goal, by embracing a pentecostalism that enjoys the freedom, but cannot embrace or practice a theology of inclusion. The same is true for those that authored the rewrite of the order of ministry. Making it easier to becomes “ordained” without accredited education so small congregations can afford a minister or to “legitimize” ethnic minorities whose culture does not value an educated minister will not solve the problem of shrinking membership, finances, or lost respect in the community. What is will do is help our brand blend in. What it will do is ensure recreating the wheel and having old fights long settled return for another round of fighting. Regression does not equal wholeness nor does downsizing or defunding the very uniqueness, education and inclusion, that helped draw persons to our brand of Christian witness in the first place. Have we decided as a denomination that the best days are behind us?
Where Are the Jobs?
by David Brooks | The New York Times | Oct. 6, 2011The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”