BLOG 6.11.19. THE CHURCH’S CONTEXT IS ALWAYS CHANGING

Remembering the church “in the good old days” or fantasizing about the church as we would like it to be in our ideal, … is not at all realistic, mainly because the cultural-social context of the church is always changing, always in flux. Add to that the reality that even if it were to happen, the contextual challenges are usually complex and ambiguous—and when church leadership is indifferent to these realties the consequences are inevitable, and frequently distressing.

One semi-humorous evidence of this is the time-honored liturgical practice of ‘taking up the offering’ as a part of worship, when most of the congregation now gives on line (has their commitment deducted from their credit card). I muse about this every Sunday as one formed to believe that I need to put something in the plate as an act of worship, … but then notice that sitting on the sixth row, my bill is the lonely inhabitant of the offering plate, and yet in a very generous congregation.

No, nothing is like it used to be, and nothing at present is like it is going to be. There are always new dimensions, new influences, new interruptions, and new irrationalities to take into account. For its whole history, as the church expanded into new ethnic scenes and geographical-cultural realities, it has either engaged them realistically, or lost its missional fruitfulness.

What this means is that for a church to maintain its missional momentum and fruitfulness it must be engaging with, and renegotiating with the present culture in a continual regeneration of its communal life. This has as an inescapable consequence of very often resisting (what has been called) the “dominant ecclesiastical order,” or “religious Christianity.” In our present and vastly influential culture of the information economy, of the digital age, the church cannot afford to act as though this were not real, not to see the effects of this on the lives of its constituents.

I just wanted to raise a flag of awareness of this enormously influential factor of our culture to my readers. Stay posted.