So, life is fast. Ask the techies to talk about the speed of thought, what is now considered an old paradigm of velocity. It's a quantum world and any body who owns a smart phone knows how to rate download times. 4G is winning.
And, then there's the institutional church. Stuck somewhere is the '50's, church leaders usually talk about committees, quarterly meetings, annual sessions, and get back to you next week. Truth is, Left Behind, the series about the rapture of the church by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, may be more descriptive of the church in relation to the culture that the church is supposed to be influencing. We're not disconnected. We're "left behind".
So, while the rest of life is paced by exponentials, algorithems, differentials and hundreds of new expressions of speed, the church still moves at the speed of taut. You know, the tightly stretched, rigid, tense and unyielding movement that is barely discerned. So, the church and culture thing is no longer a simple disconnect. Today, it is more a matter of distance. The world is moving on and the church is somewhere back there in the dust.
This is somewhat puzzling, especially when you read the church on the front lines of culture and life in the first century. In a highly structured society, with clearly drawn social, economic, gender, racial, and religious class lines, there was His church, in the afterglow of His teachings, crossing lines and setting new paradigms of order. When they encountered a problem, the leaders conferred and settled issues as soon as their travel and communications systems permitted. You can note in close study that they were never hindered by the tautness of their organization. They were never slowed by a cumbersome instututional apparatus, at least not at first. Only later was a human organizational chart superimposed over the church.
One of the things I love about contemporary church planting is the streamlined structure that most often defines their internal process. Yes, there are accountability systems and ways to insure ethical standards over administration of His church. But, trust and responsibility under gird the organizational infra-structure, mentoring and empowerment, and use of the Body image of 1 Corinthians. As a result, they often exhibit fluid movement, rapid response, and interaction with a world moving faster and faster with each day.
Then, there is the church, and most denominations too, poking along at the speed of taut. By the time we've studied, deliberated, analyzed, and voted on the urgent issues facing our lost world, the issues have changed and we're back there wondering what was wrong with our buggy whips. So, while we're scratching our heads about declining revenues and plateaued churches, and down-ward momentum, we'd better find the accelerator and get this thing moving. The world won't wait on the church moving at the speed of taut. He may not either.
Take a few minutes and scroll through the Acts. From chapter 10 on there is a rapid shift as the message of the Gospel traveled from Jerusalem to Rome. Over and over we read phrases like "...when they heard this..." (11:18), "...the report about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem..." (11:22), and many others that expressed the urgency of their mission, the speed at which they fulfilled their work.
The result? "God's message flourised and multiplied" (12:24), and "So the churches were strengthened in the faith and were increased in number daily" (16:5), and "In this way the Lord's message flourished and prevailed" (19:20).
It's a world of urgent need. The church must ramp things up some and bring to it the only answer that can impact it! Not, BTW, at the speed of taut.
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