The church in every generation
Obviously the institutions we deal with need to keep pace with change around them. As we change, so do our modes of relating with each other, and so do our modes of relating to institutions. I think we all know something clouds that process. Institutions tend take a good thing and do it too long. “Institutional memory” is long and unyielding. What began as a dynamic movement often becomes a stagnant memory of things that used to matter.
I have a theory/suggestion. The church needs to change some in every generation because the people it deals with have changed some in every generation. There is nothing new in that sentence. But a question I think is important comes next: who are the prime movers of that change? Those from within that generation, or those from the generations that come before it?
I have a suspicion that the best answer isn’t either-or, but some mixture of both-and. My concern, however, is that we won’t actually “both-and-it” very well. It might be far easier for one generation to think they hold the keys to every other just because their ideas were so significant to them in their time. On the other side it makes sense that another generation can be left wondering why someone else doesn’t pave the way for what only they can do.
It might be to good for every generation to ask: “Can someone else do it for us?” and “Am I getting in the way?”
It’s human nature that we don’t see our own ideas as one among many. We see them as crystal-clear, self evident fact. We see them as the culmination of other ideas. The final stage in the process. The problem is, almost everything about us has a shelf life from our DNA all the way down to our sense of what’s “current” and “necessary” and “next”. I don’t like the term “obsolescence”. I don’t think people can be obsolete. But I think our roles will change as time passes for us.
Each generation is at ground zero of it’s own need to adapt the modes of the church. Each generation must crack it’s own code of cultural symbols to find the current hot spot for a new connection with unchanging grace. So it may be that those closest to the center of the issue can see parts of it that no one else can.
As a result, and contrary to popular practice, I think as leaders progress in their own journey they should LISTEN more and leverage their own ideas less. Members of other generations have to become our guides to things only they can see about their “tribe” and we become theirs for what only we can see from our vantage point. It’s the only way we can truly live and think outside ourselves and the things that touch us directly.
I hope, if my leadership and influence grow, I will remember that it’s much harder to listen than it is to lead. In the church, we often see ourselves as teachers. But in this way, it might be much better to think of ourselves as students – of Christ, of lostness, of other people, of other generations, of a world we can’t possibly fully understand. Instead being one more voice in the market place shouting, “LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!” We could be one of the only voices saying, “Show me, teach me, tell me your story.”
It might be that the generations were meant to be fertilizer for each other – resources to make them grow, not resources to choose it for them.
We can never get past the need to listen to each other.
Partnership has always been of great value to God. It’s not just getting things done, it’s getting things done in relationship so that it changes those that do it. That’s the higher goal than just the job, itself. After all, He can create with sentences. Why bother with mind-of-their own human beings? So why would God bypass us in the formation of the church for our own time? The process of conceiving it and constructing it was meant to be a redemptive experience in of itself for those who will attempt to administer grace to their culture around them.
I have a theory/suggestion. The church needs to change some in every generation because the people it deals with have changed some in every generation. There is nothing new in that sentence. But a question I think is important comes next: who are the prime movers of that change? Those from within that generation, or those from the generations that come before it?
I have a suspicion that the best answer isn’t either-or, but some mixture of both-and. My concern, however, is that we won’t actually “both-and-it” very well. It might be far easier for one generation to think they hold the keys to every other just because their ideas were so significant to them in their time. On the other side it makes sense that another generation can be left wondering why someone else doesn’t pave the way for what only they can do.
It might be to good for every generation to ask: “Can someone else do it for us?” and “Am I getting in the way?”
It’s human nature that we don’t see our own ideas as one among many. We see them as crystal-clear, self evident fact. We see them as the culmination of other ideas. The final stage in the process. The problem is, almost everything about us has a shelf life from our DNA all the way down to our sense of what’s “current” and “necessary” and “next”. I don’t like the term “obsolescence”. I don’t think people can be obsolete. But I think our roles will change as time passes for us.
Each generation is at ground zero of it’s own need to adapt the modes of the church. Each generation must crack it’s own code of cultural symbols to find the current hot spot for a new connection with unchanging grace. So it may be that those closest to the center of the issue can see parts of it that no one else can.
As a result, and contrary to popular practice, I think as leaders progress in their own journey they should LISTEN more and leverage their own ideas less. Members of other generations have to become our guides to things only they can see about their “tribe” and we become theirs for what only we can see from our vantage point. It’s the only way we can truly live and think outside ourselves and the things that touch us directly.
I hope, if my leadership and influence grow, I will remember that it’s much harder to listen than it is to lead. In the church, we often see ourselves as teachers. But in this way, it might be much better to think of ourselves as students – of Christ, of lostness, of other people, of other generations, of a world we can’t possibly fully understand. Instead being one more voice in the market place shouting, “LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!” We could be one of the only voices saying, “Show me, teach me, tell me your story.”
It might be that the generations were meant to be fertilizer for each other – resources to make them grow, not resources to choose it for them.
We can never get past the need to listen to each other.
Partnership has always been of great value to God. It’s not just getting things done, it’s getting things done in relationship so that it changes those that do it. That’s the higher goal than just the job, itself. After all, He can create with sentences. Why bother with mind-of-their own human beings? So why would God bypass us in the formation of the church for our own time? The process of conceiving it and constructing it was meant to be a redemptive experience in of itself for those who will attempt to administer grace to their culture around them.
posted by CSW at
8:05 PM
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