BLOG 3/23/13. NEW CHURCH FORMS FOR A NEW CULTURE ?
Those wedded to the archaic church forms and institutions (which I spoke about in my last Blog) seldom have ears to hear any critique of such, and will seek to maintain them even though they are expensive relics of a past generation, and will probably recede into oblivion. So lest I appear too much of a contrarian (which I probably am), let me return to my Alternative Narrative thesis, and propose some directions for the form of the church in an emerging generational culture.
I frequently sit in the colorful Dancing Goats Coffee Shop to work on my notes or read. The other day I counted at least forty laptops, with younger adults (primarily) completely absorbed in their work. Not only did they have their laptops, but frequently also their iPhones propped against their ears. Before me in those absorbed younger adults was the equivalent of several office buildings, office suites, banks of file cabinets, clerks and secretaries busy answering phones and searching for files. Not only so, but many of those young adults were also graduate students, and they had access to whole libraries, and resources that my own generation hardly finds imaginable.
On weekends that same coffee shop becomes the landing-place of friendly chatter between friends, or where bicycle clubs land after their forty-mile ride, or young parents come with their kids for a family event. This is to say that such venues are the familiar locus for a new kind of societal and generational culture, and the locus for convivial relationships. So also are many neighborhood pubs.
But that’s not the end of it. In such casual locations I have also observed tables of folk with their Bibles, deeply engaged in study and conversation, even quietly praying. They have on their Kindles, or iPads Biblical and theological resources, not to mention Wikipedia and Google, so that they can process their texts in the context of their real lives with those others who share the faith adventure with Christ along with them.
(A hundred yards down the avenue sits a handsome Georgian church structure, essentially unused and empty except for some childcare, and a few meetings on Sunday.)
Even the business community is eschewing the building of expensive (and expensive to maintain) office complexes. Major corporations are substituting shared space and shared equipment for their necessary places of operation, or resorting to virtual offices. That’s one dimension of the emerging culture that is worth noting.
This same reality is also a principle with many savvy church planters seeking to reach neighborhoods, or demographic groups with the everlasting gospel. They seek some place to gather that is indigenous to their mission, and seeking to provide the congenial context for the development of deep and interactive and supportive relationships. They are recreating neighborhoods. Their focus is on developing and encouraging one another in discipleship and mission. They are intent on understanding the cultural context in which their participants live and operate. (And, by the way, they tend not to be ‘clergy-dependent.’)
This is a whole new world. It is not an aloof ‘churchy’ world, but an alive comprehension of what the church’s message and mission are. It is calling forth the creativity and optimism and innovation of a new and different cultural world. It speaks a different language than it predecessors in the church did, but is producing much more informed and engaged participants.
But, I remind my readers, that this is something of a cultural shift, or a cultural diastrophism, of major proportions. I think it exciting, but it leaves former generational cultures somewhat bewildered. I’d love to hear your comments.
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