13 thoughts on “The Millennial Obsession”
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Comments on the New Testament and Early Christianity (and related matters)
The message of the church, for any generation – no, for any individual (don’t lump me in the Baby Boomers gen) should be God’s message as representatives of His Kingdom. His message throughout Scripture was “Return to Me” and was given out of love. His unconditional, lavish love is what we each need to experience and respond to. I don’t see that message in any “ReThink Church” ad. How can you rethink something already defined by the Church Designer? Holy Spirit came, the church began. If the church is failing in reaching any group I believe its because Holy Spirit has been left out (or kicked out, snuffed out, ignored, etc.)
Equating Bishop Spong with Episcopalians (even rhetorically) is like equating Bishop Joseph Sprague with the UMC. And targeting generations is not an exhaustive and exclusive enterprise, unlike, say singles ministry or family ministry or many of the other program-centric things that came before. I agree with Rachel Evans on little, but a hermeneutics of charity would see her as being a critique of the same targeted generational ministry programs of which you are being critical. Moving from demographic research to sacramental evangelism seems pretty great. It’s not her idea, but it doesn’t need to be torn down just because she had it, too.
Like David says, “We’ve seen this movie before.” The end is always the same: disillusionment and chagrin that our fatuous ideas didn’t work out. But we already knew it would be this way if we had studied scripture.
By those who make such deliniations, I think your son’s group is refered to as “GenZ.” You asked.
How did Wesley ever do it?! All the years he must have spent reflecting and studying the demographics, studying the sociological factors, focusing on the needed changes in the religious institutions in order to discover the formula that would turn the people to God! What a phenomenal man he was to figure all of that out in his day in order to design a new religious message and methodology to change the world of religious worship into what we have today! (And if you think I a,m being serious in what I just wrote, you need to “get out more”!)
Wesley’s key need was, first, to discover the spiritual presence/power that God provides –notice the operative phrase “God provides” — which was that moment at Aldersgate when his “heart was strangely warmed”. I have always heard this phrase lifted up as one of the major, if not THE major, point of Wesley’s new direction for his life direction for God. But when I have had this discussion with persons it is always interesting to me that they then want to discuss the sociological ramifications that moment brought to the church/society of Wesley’s day and then slide to wanting us to emulate the same process for today, as if there is a formula somewhere hidden in that chapter of Wesley’s life that will be the key to our denominational resurrection. In short, they obligingly “mention” the Aldersgate moment but quickly turn the focus to Wesley’s methodology as the focus and salvation for our system. What is needed for us as a people called Christians is to, as Jesus said, trust in God’s spiritual gift to us and ask people to “follow Christ” and not focus on Wesley’s “methods” as the key for Christianity’s survival in today’s world. In other words, Wesley’s “motto’, if you will, was “the world is my parish,” not “my parish is the answer for the world today.”
Making “maintenance ministry” the denominational priority is what was the very concept that forced Wesley out of his denomination and into the world where he HAD to share Christ. May we have the same desire to share/reach the world for Christ and not for “United Methodism”.