The Church in the 21st Century...

Thu, 6 Feb 1997

Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 359 

     This is the introduction and conclusion to my rough notes of an
     address to the Annual Assembly of the Baptist Union of Victoria
     (Australia) late last year.

     Shalom!  Rowland Croucher

     Director, John Mark Ministries - resources for pastors/leaders.
       (Bookroom, library, and worldwide F.W.Boreham Trading Post)

                 Home Page: http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm
                 where the full text of this article appears


     THE CHURCH IN THE 21ST CENTURY

     But first: 

     * We should all be concerned about the future because we will have
     to spend the rest of our lives there (U.S. inventor Charles
     Franklin Kettering) 

     * The future is made of the same stuff as the present (Simone
     Weil) 

     * It is the business of the future to be dangerous (Alfred North
     Whitehead) 

     * Futurists are about self-fulfilling prophecies; they basically
     have a dream and set out to make it come true (Futurologist Peter
     Ellyard, quoted in The Bulletin, Sydney, January 24, 1995, p.35) 

     * Those who take short views will have long troubles (Chinese
     saying) 

     * 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
     asked Alice. 'That depends a great deal on where you want to get
     to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care where...' said Alice. 'Then
     it doesn't matter which way you walk,' said the Cat (Alice in
     Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) 

     * This is the day which the Lord has made; we will be glad and
     rejoice in it (Psalm 118:24) 

     * 'In the year 1999 and seven months, from the sky will come the
     great King of Terror. He will bring back to life the great King of
     the Mongols. Before and after, war reigns happily.' Nearly 500
     years ago Nostradamus, a French magician, predicted that our
     century would end in cataclysm.


     The year 2000 has the world mesmerized. It's looming as a kind of
     major temporal frontier to the unknown. Our forbears had plenty of
     these frontiers (like what lies over the ocean or up on the moon),
     but scientists have blasted through most of them, so we live in a
     generation bereft of wonder.  Even the number's roundness has a
     fascination. The spectre of a technological elite running the
     world ravaged by famine and terrorists is a vision creeping into
     the movies (Blade Runner, Brazil, Robocop etc.).  Virtual Reality
     allows anyone to see or hear or experience almost anything
     imaginable in cyberspace. (But my Internet search engines have so
     far turned up almost nothing on 'The Church in the 21st Century ')

     In the Spring/Summer 1993 Whitley Bulletin, the Principal (and now
     our President) Dr Ken Manley wrote a lead article on 'Remembering
     the Future'. He cited the wisdom of the White Queen in Alice in
     Wonderland who said, 'It's a poor memory that only works
     backwards. I can remember the things that happen the week after
     next.' He added some words from Lawrence Weschler: 'History isn't
     in the past; it's a posture in the present toward the future'. And
     then Edward Kennedy, at his brother Robert's funeral: 'Our future
     may lie beyond our vision, but it is not beyond our control.' The
     Principal invited his readers to think in the future tense,
     particularly in relation to the future of Whitley College.

     Exercise : Hand out pieces of paper, and ask the students to write
     down seven things that would happen in the future, and put a date
     against them. Collect the m and arrange in chronological order to
     see what kind of collective summary of the future the group has.
     (When Alvin Toffler did this he found that only 10% use the word
     'I', and only about a third of these refer to their own death.
     There is a discrepancy between what's going to happen to the
     world, and what would happen to them - nothing. The future is
     something that happens to somebody else ).

     FUTURISM. Futurists are as old as civilization. Amos, an eighth
     century BCE prophet, who had no formal training, saw in his
     materialistic society the few prospering via injustices to the
     many.  By using 'trend extrapolation' he warned that present
     trends could not continue... What can we learn from Amos? First,
     he closely studied the local, national and international scene -
     so must we. Second, he saw his task involving both warning and
     offering suggestions for renewal and change. Third, the story of
     his life shows a prophet's life to be a difficult one: prophets
     call for a change in the status quo, and many people who benefit
     from things staying the way they are won't like it. (Amos was
     threatened by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who reported to King
     Jeroboam of Israel about this stirrer.)

     Corporations and institutions everywhere are caught up in 'end of
     century / 21st century' thinking. Futurists (or futurologists) use
     various techniques - like trend extrapolation (projecting into the
     future from current trends), 'delphi' (groups of experts working
     separately offering their insights), scenarios (something like the
     science fiction writing of Arthur Clarke or Isaac Asimov), and
     simulation modeling (using computers)...

     ....

     Conclusions: Let's summarize the key issues I believe the church
     will have to face in the 21 st century:

     1.  Spiritually: let's become more accountable to one another in
     our commitment to our God

     2.  Ecclesiologically:  let us recapture the prophetic calling so
     that our discipleship will be more radical; and practise a
     theology of ministry which empowers all ministers - clergy and
     others - towards spiritual maturity; and encourage pastors and
     other leaders towards excellence

     3.  Psychologically: strengthening families, and working hard to
     enhance church-as-family

     4.  Economically: feeding the hungry and working creatively to
     find every able-bodied and able-minded person a job

     5. Theologically, conservatives and 'moderates'/liberals have got
     to start talking to each other, and praying together.  The issues
     will vary from decade to decade, and group to group. For Baptists
     in Australia the fundamental issue is hermeneutical, how we
     interpret the Bible. This impinges on 'presenting' issues like
     abortion/euthanasia, homosexuality, women in leadership, and
     charismatic renewal.

     6.  Missiologically, we need to recapture an understanding of
     Jesus' and Paul's concerns about the 'lostness' of people outside
     the kingdom.

     7.  Morally, we have to work harder on the theory and practice of
     sexual ethics. - for pastors, and for everyone.

     The future never turns out to be so alien or as calamitous as we
     imagined. But then a full-blown Armageddon hasn't happened yet.

     God reigns, despite appearances. God's reign gives us hope.  God
     invites us to cooperate in bringing about God's rule everywhere -
     in people's lives, in power structures, in our work and study and
     leisure - ie. on earth as it is in heaven. So although God's reign
     is 'spiritual' its reality impinges on all of life...
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