I am recently back from the Bicentennial Reunion at Princeton Theological Seminary, a four-day event with various lectures, workshops, panels, and worship. And lots of good food! I very much enjoyed being back on campus, seeing some dear old friends and meeting some new ones. The lectures were challenging, the worship was mostly excellent, and as I mentioned to some, I haven't had to think so much in a long time.
The keynote lecturer was N.T. Wright, a popular professor, theologian, writer, and former Anglican Bishop of Durham, UK. He spoke, mostly from his recent book, on the topic "How God Became King." Over three days he made the point that since the Enlightenment of the 18th century the church has pretty much misinterpreted the Gospels by ignoring the claims Jesus makes about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. He made a good case and offered several correctives for how we should then read the Gospels, emphasizing some things more than usual and others less so. At the root of it all, I took away the sense that for several generations Western Christians have failed to take God's sovereignty seriously and it is now time to do so.
Among the workshops and such, the last was a panel discussion with six of the presenters from the week, including PTS's retiring president Iain Torrance, an African-American pastor and social activist, a Korean pastor who had escaped from N. Korea to the U.S. as a teenager and returned to S. Korea as a missionary, an Hispanic pastor and teacher, Kenda Creasy Dean who specializes in youth ministry, and one of the brass from the Gallop Poll. All of them addressed the question of the church's current and future relevance through their various lenses and demographics of interest. The recurring theme was that the church as it exists in the U.S. now is not equipped to reach the changing population and culture in which we live and must change dramatically in both theology and practice of ministry. Kenda's assessment was particularly grim, that the theology that Christian youth come away with is nothing like the Gospel we know from Jesus, that they get their theology from parents and church, and that by the time they reach their 20s their religious affiliation is, in 9 out of 10 cases, insignificant.
All of this served to focus for me the struggles we have been having at CPC. While much of what we have been going through is a product of our particular system, it reflects many of the themes I heard at PTS last week. Our ministry has not worked to connect people with an authentic experience of the life-giving Gospel of Jesus. Our young families are choosing cultural imperatives over fulfillment of their baptismal vows. Our leaders are overwhelmed, standing between their own cultural and church commitments while trying to chart a path to a new model of ministry; but like Abraham and Sarah, it is a journey to an unknown land leading to an unlikely future of promise.
As pastor, I feel that I am as much in the dark about where we are going and how we are to get there as anyone else in the church. I am a product of the same dynamics described by Wright and the panelists. Plus, I suffer from a neurotic conflict avoidance that has made it remarkably difficult for me to confront people, issues, my self, to try to keep things on the rails. Even if I were to push some of these families to get back to church, what would I have to offer that would be relevant, meaningful, transforming? At the moment, not much. And yet, everything. We have the Gospel of Christ! We just don't seem to have a good delivery system. There are certainly times when I look at what the church offers and what the culture both offers and demands, and my sympathies lie with those who choose, if not for the culture, against the church.
So, we need to find a new way of doing things and of telling the Good News. Something radically new, yet grounded in the Scriptures. Maybe it starts with worship. And prayer. And relationships. We can't force a "Holy Spirit moment" of course, but we can plow the ground for it. Prayer opens the way. Our relationships need to be deep enough that we trust each other in front of God and everybody. Then our worship can be a true work of the people, a community experience of the Holy Presence of God in Christ. Everyone can bring something to offer in worship, as in 1 Corinthians 14:26. Worship would be much less liturgical, moving away from the printed word to multisensory experiences of the Word. More open prayer. More silence. Less sermon, more guided meditation. More art, music, drama, and texture. Less of the preacher, more interaction among worshipers and between them and Christ.
This sort of thing would take a lot of getting used to. It will not appeal to everyone, especially many who have grown up with the old system of clergy providing "church" for people to receive. That's pretty much anyone who grew up in church in the last 300 years. But it could create the sort of worshiping community that will connect with (if not attract) a new generation of believers. Might even transform the current generation, or at least some of them.
Isn't that what we're supposed to be about?
No comments:
Post a Comment