I think that Segmentation is, at its root, a lie. It is the lie that I carry some privilege for belonging to a particular group. And the flip side of For People Like Me is that there are other people who are not People Like Me. I believe that's wrong. As much as there are obviously transitions and changes in culture, I believe every human being IS a person like me. Specifically, a "wretch like me."
- Andy Crouch
One of the greatest gifts I've been given in my ministry experience was the chance, my first year of seminary, to be an assistant to Dr. David Roadcup at the Center for Church Advancement at Cincinnati Christian University. Dave gave me lots of interesting things to do, one of which was to reorganize the Center's resource library.
Under a stack of books and sermon tapes, I found these video cassettes from a 2001 conference on "Building Worship Services for Postmodern Generations." Because I'd recently begun such a worship service, I watched the tapes to pick up some pointers. I didn't get many pointers, but the final talk of the conference has forever changed my life, my view of the church, and my understanding of Jesus' mission.
I present them here without further comment, except to say that it's a prelude to my thoughts on "The Coming Evangelical Split," which has been blowing up my Facebook and Google Reader feeds for the past week. After seeing several friends post the link on Facebook today, and having others talk about how much they liked it, I wrote "I hate this at a level I can't articulate." And I really can't. But I need to be able to.
So this is where I begin to process.
FPLM, by Andy Crouch (Part 1 of 3) from micah1835 on Vimeo.
FPLM, by Andy Crouch (2 of 3) from micah1835 on Vimeo.
I'll upload Part Three next week, once my upload cap resets.
1 comment:
Those were good, but I couldn't find the third video. I think we all (should) feel bothered by the split or the "Great Emergence" as Phyllis Tickle puts it because for all we gained in the Reformation we lost a lot too. We all know there was a tragedy in that "victory." I don't like that we may be on the verge of another split but I do appreciate the articulation of the tension a lot of us are feeling. Maybe if we don't name it and see it we can't deal with it. What is the other solution? Ignore it? Pretend it's not going on? One thing about post-moderns is they don't like the labels, denominations, in and out, and all that stuff. Maybe this fraction has to rise up to be the example of the end of fractions. I guess time will tell if this is a tragedy or a victory. My guess is, as always, it will be a bit of both.
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