Some folks seem to be reeling from some recent revelations:<\/p>\n
1\u2013 \u2018white majority\u2019 is no longer a thing because of\u00a0a)<\/em> growing demographics of multi-ethnic groups and<\/strong> b) <\/em>philosophical differences, even\u00a0among\u00a0people of the same race.<\/p>\n 2\u2013 women can do stuff. it\u2019s a thing.<\/p>\n 3\u2013 there is no one truth, and there are no easy answers. If a country is divided literally in half, we have to acknowledge that we are all a little bit right, and we are all a little bit wrong. Our best hope is to engage in some discourse and hope to take the best of all worlds with us as we move forward.<\/p>\n This is what the mainstream media says we learned from the election. Let me take just a moment to say\u2026 ahem\u2026 The Church has known this for years!<\/em> At least, some churches\u2026 In any case, many of us have been pointing out for years that status-quo, \u2018as-we\u2019ve-always-done-it\u2019 approaches to congregational life no longer work. And we attribute the changes in culture to many of the same elements that seemed to shock the country in this election cycle: our demographics are shifting, people\u2019s priorities are changing, and places where people all look exactly the same <\/em>do not much exist anymore. And the ones that do are dying.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not heading into another political discussion. I\u2019m just pointing out that, what the media says we\u2019ve learned this year, some of us have been trying (perhaps too gently) to point out for a decade.<\/p>\n And yet, we are still learning what these changes mean in practice.\u00a0How do we adapt\u00a0so that the \u2018church\u2019 as we knew\/know it can continue to function in a shifting world?<\/p>\n My church is among those seeking a way in the forest; and trying to \u2018write the book,\u2019 as it were, on what the post-post-modern church looks like. But a few things we do know: less meetings, more doing stuff; less rules, more spiritual growth; less spending, more giving; less building and property, more being out in homes, neighborhoods, cities, the world in general;<\/p>\n And\u2013this one is super important\u2013less reaching out to the same people we\u2019ve always known and always had\u2026more opening the doors to people who might make us nervous, folks who might disagree with us, families who don\u2019t fit in the box, and demographics that will challenge and transform us from within.<\/p>\n These revelations of inevitable progress have gotten a lot of politicians run off the stage. At the same time, we see more and more pastors getting run out of town as a result of these difficult conversations. Churches that have no interest in \u2018being transformed\u2019 seem bent on shooting the messenger. I\u2019m increasingly aware of how many of my clergy friends are involved in games of \u2018kick the pastor.\u2019 The more they try to shine a light on the shifts happening in their community, and the ways the church needs to reinvent itself in order to share the good news, the more tightly people cling to establishment, and well\u2026It\u2019s not pretty.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to change the story. Many will say this means compromising values, \u2018selling out\u2019 on sensitive issues, and even say that we think we know more than God. On the contrary, letting go of our dying models and our worn out arguments will open us up to a spirit of renewal. It will sharpen our focus on what matters\u2013in Christian practice, and civilization in general\u2013and make us, maybe, a little less afraid of what we see happening on the horizon. There\u2019s something to be said for changing ahead of the need.<\/p>\n Maybe the gov\u2019ment didn\u2019t get the message until Tuesday, but some of us sure are trying to preserve that which gives life\u2013in Christianity, and elsewhere\u2013and let go the rest. We seek the way of Jesus\u2013the one who brought good news to a changing world, and asked us to do the same\u2013and you know, the rest is just details. We sure don\u2019t have it all figured out, we know we aren\u2019t \u2018right\u2019 about everything\u2026but man, it does feel good to know that the Church, at least in some small part, is finally getting ahead of the curve on some things.<\/p>\n I pray for my friends who are serving in places where folks don\u2019t want to read the memo. I pray for small towns that have not found a way to welcome people of color, and large cities where the economic gap still runs along the same lines as race. I pray for politicians whose constituents will demand that they fight the same old battles about who can love whom, even if the rest of us have moved on. I pray we all find the grace to know that it\u2019s not all figured out yet\u2026but that the more people we have at the table, the less we look like a house divided, and the more we look like the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n