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the church


Change in the same future tense

I grew up within what is called a traditional church setting. My folks were religious in their attendance and Sunday routine. Sunday mornings we would attend Sunday school and morning worship. Chances were good that if we didn't have a mid-afternoon dinner at home we would be visiting relatives. Growing up in the traditional church setting didn't change much but it did get more intense. Sunday school, morning worship, take care of chores around the house and back to evening worship. Sunday became another busy day. And the relaxing times we spent on Sunday had now become a mid-week cell group where we get to spend time with friends. The traditional church setting then changed to become what is now called the contemporary church.

The church today has changed in many ways. This is from a guy who grew up in church and later made the church setting a vocation. The pace was more relaxed in the traditional church. Everyone gathered for worship and Sunday school was the basic stuff, seen today as boring because it didn't have puppets, child worship services, and the like. I'm not looking to return to this style; in fact I don't think that would even be possible even within the traditional context. Now with the contemporary church style, we have so geared ourselves to the TV-commercial-sound bite pace that unless we have a significant change the intensity will only increase

I saw a quote from Mike Yaconelli's book:

"Today's modern service is orchestrated so nothing disturbing, uncomfortable, controversial, or shocking occurs. The music is edited to eliminate mediocre musicians or off-key singers. Solo numbers are assigned to the best. Prayer requests are screened or relegated to the bulletin where they can be carefully worded. Testimonies are screened to guarantee they won't make anyone uncomfortable or go on for too long." The Illegitimate Church, 2003

The post-modern, post-Christian society continues to redevelop itself. Now a change is appearing on the horizon, only yet to seen what and how it will develop. This is the church emerging from modern spirituality into what Leonard Sweet has called the EPIC form (Experiential, Participatory, Images, Communal) soulTsunami, 1999. Because there is no one model of the church emerging, it has been called more a change in mindset than a model and its variety is only limited by style while the spiritual context of the gospel remains constant.

As part of this move the gate was begun to explore the realities of the church emerging from modernism to a more postmodern and Celtic theology and ministry. Our hope is that the truth can be experienced as well as understood, our faith and connection to Jesus can be linked to history and still be relational in everyday life, and there is a mystery in Christianity that goes beyond our own diligent seeking.