Find "Community"

It was great to come across this website this morning. for those who come from my own faith tradition (Seventh-day Adventist), you may want check out this blog. while the web seems to have brought the world together, it is atomized it as well.

http://reinventingsdawheel.blogspot.com/2007/11/masters-workshop-all-you-need-to-know.html

i was reminded that worship has taken on so many forms as it has evolved over the past two decades. i wonder if anyone has come across someone who has written about the evolution of media usage through the past fifty years. i say this because i read so many from the emerging generations who now take shots at the older (i.e. boomers) generations, at megachurches, seemingly uninterested in how the cultural forces have shaped those churches and that indeed, right now, there are just as equally powerful cultural forces shaping the emerging generations. while i may not agree with all of Strauss & Howe's conclusions, their work on the generational cohorts i believe can contribute to our understanding. the central, core principle is the incarnational principle for ministry in context. this gets back to my earlier post on the three texts of ministry: life (experience), scripture, and culture.

this has led me to become more interested in sociology and anthropology, understanding the wider ramifications for how we express what is at the core of our "belief." as Fowler and others have indicated, "belief" is not merely the ascent of the mind, it is the engagement of the whole being, the leaning into something that draws the whole person.

anyhow, i am puzzled by those act surprised by Willow's admission. how many organizations, much less churches, when they've conducted some kind of "organizational audit," have discovered that what they had been doing in some arena was not working? every church attempts a "program" to accomplish something, whether it be a "alt. worship" or some involvement in the community, or some kind of Christian education pursuit. find me a church that hasn't had to make course corrections. how many churches have equated activity with spiriual formation?

one final inconsequential note, the bears continue the roller coaster ride.

happy trails!