The Future of Church

I was given an article this week that is a 12 part series of observations and refections with Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault and Christopher Page. In the next while I am going to break up this article to give us things to think about and potentially respond to.

Here is the first observation:

During Lent 2011 in Victoria British Columbia, Canada eight church clergy, academics, and spiritual teachers (including Cynthia Bourgeault) shared their thoughts and insights over six Wednesdays on “The Future of Church". Christopher Page created a synthesis of twelve observations that emerged from these presentations and Cynthia Bourgeault will offer her reflections on these points over the coming weeks.

Observation # 1: The church is in the midst of a massive cultural sea change. This paradigm shift is altering everything around us and we in the church are not at fault for the devastating impact it is having upon our institution. The decline in the church is not primarily the fault of mismanagement, bad theology, or lack of good will. We are caught up in forces much bigger than we can control.

Cynthia's response: This strikes me as an enormously helpful and non-judgmental way of framing the situation, encouraging us right from the outset to “think outside the box.” It really is a fascinating time to be alive as not only change itself but the rate of change keeps accelerating beyond anything the world has ever experienced. From global warming to the worldwide web, it’s all about dynamic equilibrium in a fragile and interconnected world. This may be new to traditional theological formulations, but it’s right at the heart of the Jesus message. As Fr. Bruno Barnhart so brilliantly put it in his book Second Simplicity: “The gospel’s secret power, often hardly glimpsed by Christianity itself, is the gathering up of all our passion, our entropic centrifugal energy, our very outward thrust and vital compulsivity, secularity, and carnality into this divine energy that ever flows outward from its hidden Source.” If it happened once, it can happen again. And we will find our way by turning toward it, not by running scared.