I put off tweeting as long as I could, and I must admit
that I’m still a novice at all these new electronic means of communicating (…I
mean social networking…) with one another. Yet, this week, I’ve caught the
hashtag bug. First it was the Rocky
Mountain Annual Conference because I was curious as to why everybody was
tweeting about trees. I learned a lot from the tweets of those attending as
they have compared the vitality of churches to the life of trees: the health of the roots, impact of the
environment on the trees, and the animals, birds, and insects that live in them. Took me a day or two before realizing the
theme of the Annual Conference session was “Cultivating
the Tree of Life.” But the conversation that has really made me catch the
bug is #80schurchmusic. Maybe it’s a Younger
Boomer thing that we can entertain ourselves by changing the titles of pop/rock
music hits from the 1980s to reflect church life. Every denomination and tradition has been
made the subject of an altered song title: “Harper Valley PCA,”
“I Wish They All Could Be Southern Baptist Girls”, “Papa Don't Preach
Pentecostalism,” “Walk Like an Episcopalian,” and "She Blinded Me with
Scientology" just to list a few.
But the conversation has also gotten personal with titles
like these:
- “Everybody
Wants to Rule the Church”
- “(Finance
Committee Meets…) All Night Long”
- “Sweet
Dreams (of getting out by noon)”
- “I Still
Haven't Found the Committee I'm Looking For”
- “Time After
Time (aka How Many Times Is the Preacher Going to Use That Same
Illustration?)”
All this conversation from around
the world, laughing together at our church experience in different places and across
various traditions…then all of the sudden pops up "Church Is a
Battlefield"? Ouch! People see us acting as the song titles describe, and
then we wonder why new people don’t come and young people don’t want to stay in
church.
In the midst of more titles comes a
tweet that reads: “Once again, the church is 35 years behind the culture.” I can attempt to learn to tweet and
blog and use my smart phone the best I can, but I see church newsletters all
the time that haven’t changed in format since the first one was produced on the
original mimeograph machine. Who
is that attracting? How is the church changing to meet the demands of new
lifestyle, communication, and networking technologies? How much longer can we
avoid reality by telling ourselves it is okay not to change just because we’re
comfortable where we are (aka “we’ve never done it that way before”)?
In
May of 1983 when I graduated from college, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” was the
number one pop song in the country. Maybe
I should add that song to the Twitter conversation as “Change It.” Today’s culture is certainly different from
the world I experienced as a young adult in the 1980s. And it is certainly not the 1950s anymore
when most of our churches were filled with children and everyone in the
community seemed to adhere to Christian values. But is your church different
today? Are you…mentoring new leaders and
supporting them in leadership roles? …envisioning new ministries to reach
diverse people and emerging community needs? Utilizing the gifts, graces, and
passions of members and attendees?...exploring the multitude of ways to nurture
current disciples and make new ones? If not, start singing “Change It.”
During
the same period this year, the top pop song was Pink’s “Just Give Me a
Reason.” It was on my playlist as I
walked this morning. How will people in
30 years change that title to reflect their church experience? I hope it’s not “Just Give Me a Reason (…to
even go to church).” The future is in
our thumbs…I mean hands.
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