BLOG 4/10/13. WHO SHAPES THE EMERGING WORLD?

BLOG 4/10/13. WHO SHAPES THE EMERGING WORLD, THE FUTURE?

I am totally fascinated by David Burstein’s recent book, Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping Our World. David is one of those millennials who is incredibly well informed and creative himself. At the same time, the question comes to my mind, as a follower of Jesus: Isn’t changing the world exactly what Jesus had in mind when he called his followers, from the very beginning? After all, he did come to inaugurate a new creation, i.e., to “make all things new.”

But somehow you’d never know this by hanging around all too many Christian communities. Their inhabitants love being together, but frequently have no sense of any compelling mandate of what they are to be about when they are scattered into the realities of their 24/7 lives. I have a proclivity of asking new people, whom I meet in church gatherings: “What do you do besides come to church gatherings?” I often get a double-take, and then the response: “What do you mean?” … which, of course, gives me the opportunity to remind them that we are together for a couple of hours once a week, but we are still God’s people scattered for about another 160 hours (or however the math works out).

Burstein sees the millennial generation as a generation of both realists, and of pragmatic idealists. That would be a pretty good description of the followers of Jesus if they had read their New Testament documents carefully—salt of the earth, light of the world, incarnations of God’s New Creation, recreated into the image of Christ, agents of justice, love, mercy, compassion, meaning, hope, and a rambunctious expectation for the world and the future. Maybe we ought to toss in here, the fact that we are also called to the glory of God and excellence (II Peter 1:3).

The church, in its better manifestations, does exactly that … but it easily gets distracted, and hides in sanctuaries, and becomes subservient to church professionals and to security, and to passivity, and to religious Christianity.

Burstein also makes a major point that the millennials are total realists, and that their pragmatic idealism does not make them, in the least, myopic about the very real and complex problems facing the global society in the 21st century. If anyone should be equipped to be realistic about his world it should be God’s people, who understand where and how it became so screwed up in so many ways.

The purpose of the church’s gathering together is to mutually encourage and equip each other for the week before us. We mutually reinforce each other for our weekly mission of “shaping the world” through adoration, through confession and a reminder of our forgiveness, through the word of Christ being taught so that it dwells among us richly, and through our gathering at the Eucharist—all to refocus us on the fact that the church is the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity, and that our lives are to be the demonstration of God’s design for his new humanity.

My friend, the late Pete Hammond, used to remind me (rather pointedly) that if I couldn’t see beyond my sermon notes, and to where he and the men and women before me would be on Thursday afternoon … and if he and those folk in the pews couldn’t see beyond my sermon and teaching to where they would be on Thursday afternoon, and how it all equipped for the realities of the week … then the word and sacrament were without effect or meaning. You can argue with that if you wish, but he makes a great point. How about: “Fast future—how Christ’s church is shaping our world?”

… To be continued.

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About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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