The Becoming
Who are we becoming?
A big question, I know. Not to be taken lightly or skimmed over, but I think it’s the question of our time. Who are we becoming?
This can be cast to the individual, to the community, to the corporation, to the world at large…. You get the idea.
But the particular question I’m interested in these days is:
Who are we becoming as a Church?
And I’m not interested in answering it alone. Individualism has failed us in more ways than one. It’s responsible for so much of our predicament now, so it cannot be trusted to handle the determination of the future.
Who are we becoming?
This is a question I’m most interested in answering with the next generation.
You see, what’s not been plain for so many of us to see, they see clearly:
In the words of a beloved 16 year-old girl I met recently,
“It’s all a sham.”
Sham.
I needed to Urban Dictionary that.
Check it out:
Sham: “Originally used in the U.S. Army to describe the act of pretending to work in order to avoid actually working.”
Ah, there it is. Pretending.
Pretending to be a people on mission, while living lives that are superficial in discipleship, poisoned by politics and partisanship, casting aside the other when Inclusivity and Belonging are required, silencing through siloed theology, and… ahh, there it is again:
Entertaining rather than inviting into participation.
We’re enamored with a culture of celebrity and pretending to work instead of actually working.
We love the idea of being on mission, but we are living lives that look nothing like how Jesus lived mission during his time on earth.
“It’s all a sham.”
So, they’re exiting. 1.2 million a year in the U.S. alone is the most recent stat I heard.
1.2 million a year in our 50 states… let that sink in.
It’s an Exodus.
We’re decrying their exit, wondering how we can fix them and fix the faith. I laugh even as I type that. How can we fix them? They are not our projects. They don’t need fixing. They are our evolution, our succession.
Check it out: the Exodus led the people to the Promised Land. The journey was bizarre and boggling and painful and even chaotic, but without the Exodus, the people would have been left in bondage, in slavery to a Pharaoh that had nothing more to offer them than second-class citizenship, crushing labor, and the killing of their children.
The Exodus, though, led the people away from their predicament of suffering to the Promised Land.
They’re in Exodus - the next generation. And I need to know. I want Us (corporately) to know, to discover… where they are leading.
Where are they going? Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? What is the scent of the trail and the footsteps and the direction? And how can we go with them? And make their journey easier? How can we resurrect faith through their deconstruction? How can we restore beauty and oil of gladness in our cities that smell of ashes?
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I’m part of a good local church - a safe church, and I don’t use that term lightly. They’re far and few between these days. A church that is positioned to receive the future and is making sure that we’re designing for it with our youth at the helm.
So, in addition to the incorporation of Gen Z at all of our leadership tables: preaching, worship, elder boards, hiring committees, mission teams… you get the idea, we also just completed a Transition class that capitalized on the question “Who are we becoming?” by asking it directly to our 35 and unders.
Let me say it again: They are not our projects and they do not need our fixing.
What they need is people alongside them: picking up the scent of where they are going, and packing their bags for the journey.
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In an exercise in prophetic imagination, at this dear church where I newly belong, we put together a panel: junior high, high school, college, post-college, and we tasked them with casting a vision for where the Church must go next.
An 18 year old, a new graduate said words that have been sparking fire in me since. Set aside your sensitivities, I warn you, for this is new wine - it will not fit the wineskin of before. She said this,
“I keep thinking of Martin Luther and the 95 Theses and how it began the Reformation, and I just keep thinking that we need another one of those right now.”
All the little hairs on my arms stood up on edge at the time, and ever since- sleeping, eating, working, preaching, making dinner, soccer practices…. I can’t help but keep hearing it in the air: the tik tak of a hammer hitting nails, posting those Theses.
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The Great Shift is here.
And we’ll make it out better than before, if we can discern:
Who are we becoming?
And better will we be if we ask it alongside those who can see:
Who can see our mistakes,
Who can see our transgressions,
Who know our Jesus,
Who love His mission,
Who call our bluff,
Who renounce empire,
And humbly walk in love.
Let them lead us to what is next - to the land flowing with milk and honey, leaving behind our shell of suffering… to the next Iteration of the Church - for His glory.
I’ve put my stake in the wall.
I’m going with them, wherever they go next.