February 2012

I think we might be paranoid about being correct

February 25, 2012

So what are we so paranoid about when it comes to helping the next generation find God?

I had the honor of speaking at a two-day conference and then consulting with 6 different churches over the last 5 days. In two of the contexts the churches are having discussions about what it might look like to reach the “next generation,” whatever that might mean. I say that because as I listen I hear a lot of things that makes me think this next generation might need to reach us…or maybe more aptly put (and less age-related) the so called “far from God” might actually need to show us “connected-to-God” types how to actually contact God.

Lately I am being called upon more and more to facilitate conversations between various groups within churches. Staff to staff, staff to board, board to lay leadership teams and all the permutations you might come up with among those groups. In those facilitations one thing is emerging quite clearly; those of us within the churched world seem to be more concerned about being correct than being connected. And I mean that in two ways. We are more concerned about being correct about God, doctrine, distinctives and our “liturgy” than connecting to mission. And we are more concerned about being correct, and thereby making those we are reaching to be wrong, than we are about connecting with them even if that means they don’t by into our distinctives.

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Don’t You Want Deep Connection?

February 9, 2012

Karl Jaspers, the great German thinker, was the first one to coin the term Axial Age to describe the time period from 800BC to 200BC when the birth of the major world religions happened in various parts of the world nearly “simultaneously.” To understand how and why this happened is incredibly interesting. But something beyond the birth of religion as we know it happened then as well. And it is that I want us to think about. We experienced a marked shift from what Jasper’s calls pre-axial consciousness.

The world “pre-axial” was a world where union with creation was obvious, expected and enjoyed. The transition into the Axial Age brought about a dis-integration, a decoupling, a dis-connecting of humanity and the self from God as God had been known up till that time. (Interesting note: religion is from the Latin re-ligare, to re-ligature, re-bind, re-connect, it is unfortunate that the word religion has fallen on such hard times and is presumed to be about rules when in reality it is about relationship)

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