Time for some major ritual change...

For many of us in the church we all know the continuing plaguing(no kidding) question that is upon us...Where are the young people?  I began to think about that and I don't think it is the right question.  The real question is...where has the church gone that it no longer has anything to offer the young people?  

I recently took part in a meditation retreat and I noticed something...every aged person was present.  Obviously it is not a matter of a lack of interest that young people do not engage the spiritual.  Instead, it must be a lack of the current institutions providing anything that truly allows people to link to the spiritual.  It is time to change that by implementing and recalling our ritual past to create places for all to worship, pray, meditate and to engage the divine and themselves.  

Thoughts

I sit glass in hand,

pondering imagination,

the beautiful mind

that brings joy,

fear, anxiety,

and exhilaration.

As I taste my drink

I feel my spirit nourished

by the simple impulse of the sweet flavor.

Somehow that simple act

touches my piece of the divine.

Sweet, sour, sin, and flower

oh...the senses to which I delight,

all because my mind and soul are one.

Financial Wealth - Why does faith focus on that?

Recently I notice how so many churches are focused on numbers, specifically financial ones. If I have learned anything from my financial experience is that the more you wine about lack of something, the less you will receive. Progressive communities of faith are in a crisis because they have failed to be visionary, to reach out, or to be risky. In order for the progressive church to find new ways to change we must focus on the gifts we do have. By focusing on these gifts we will see new ministry forming and transforming the world. In doing this we will also start to see money, because people support things that they believe in and that are transforming the world for the better.

Progressive church communities can no longer drool over the past. A past in which if you built it they would come, no they will not come anymore unless they are invited. Go out and invite them, and stop "mortgaging the future for the sake of the past" (1).



1. Rev. Dick Storment, District Superintendent, Yellowstone Annual Conference of the UMC, June 2009, www.yacumc.org

Clergy in this new world are not Bible experts or people that know God in perfect ways.  Instead clergy are to be the people who can tell stories, engage the imagination, ask us to think beyond ourselves, to help us engage the divine mystery.  These are the people the church must now train, not the preservers of scripture, but the "mid-wives of culture"(1) to whom we will look to help us dream a new world.  That is why the message of Christ creating a new kingdom on earth is a great image for Christianity to embrace, and I encourage other faiths to look to what images they will use to embrace this new change.

1-Dr. Vincent Harding in a lecture to "Christianity in the Modern World" Iliff School of Theology Fall 2008

The place of the Church in the culture

"Rethink Church" the new marketing slogan for the United Methodist Church.  The young people of the church hope it is not just a slogan and not just rethinking.  We hope that it is re-creating the church.  For the church has more to offer the world now at a time that we need peacemakers, community builders, and we need miracle workeres.  Young people and the next generation of leadership, young and old, are calling on the church to make a change.  Get out into the community and provide the catalyst to change our world for the better.  For it is through us that the kingdom is made possible.  

Grace and Enthusiastic Peace

Where is God today?

God my God, where are you today?

Are you in the mountain, or in the valley?

With the poor, or rich?

Hidden in the corridors of power, or in the homes of the powerless?

As I look to find you I see where you have been.  

Changing peoples hearts to care for the world.

How do I catch up with you?

To really spend time with you?

Instead of just seeing where you have been.

I am a young person, and I pray that I may have a moment with you.

Can you please set some time aside?

So that I may walk beside

and know you more.

Psalm 152

By The Psalmist Amundson aka Tanpants

Hashem we have heard of the magical signal the brought instant knowledge

The signal you gave to our fore-bearers, aka us here in this class last week

A divine spark that you demonstrated to the people

A sign that you had truly blessed us

We search for this signal

Oh Hashem my god bring back magically the signal

Make us wise once more

For it is through the corporate thought of endless electronic signals that we find peace

We find contact outside of this one place in which or bodies are trapped to be most affirming to our small lives

To think that we may not be able to change our mood online, leaves us trapped in this sense of melancholy

What must we do to prove our worth of the magic wireless?

Must we grovel to the IT lords, or will you bring it back on your own.

For we truly would rather find peace in your name then in an email from IT.

Oh wireless come back, Oh Hashem connect us again.