EXCITING FUTURE

     I was surprised at the feeling rising within me.

     The situation was not exactly of the inspirational type.  It was a lecture on a rainy Wednesday evening.

     It takes a lot to get me out evenings.  A career-time of night meetings can do that to you.  But here I was, with maybe 100 others, in spite of myself.

     Robert Funk was plugging a new book - “Honest to Jesus.”  (He is one of the principle authors of the noted “Five Gospels, Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus.”)  You see? No cause for excitement.

     He commented about his career from pastorate to seminary to state university, all in a quest for a place in which to be able to discuss issues honestly and openly.  One of the tragedies of church life is that most members are deprived of true “honest to Jesus” dialogue.  Clergy who are candid about scholarship and their own suspicions can get into trouble.  (I must say, either to the credit of my congregations or to the blurred communication of my own preaching, I was never called to task for discussion of issues of biblical scholarship.)

     However, with more and more people exposed to every variety of religious thought and all of the latest in biblical scholarship, the day of not being “honest to Jesus” is a thing of the past.  Clergy are going to have to come honest.  That stirred a good feeling.

     Another comment was about the end of denominationalism.  My generation was bothered by this and spun a lot of wheels and wasted a lot of time going through various ecumenical discussions and negotiations with hope of merging or doing something about denominational division.  In the meanwhile, by the always surprising workings of the Spirit or something, common people simply abandoned denominations as a way of identifying their religious tribe.  Long before I left the church I had quit talking about “our” denomination because I realized that most of our members didn’t come from the denomination, didn’t care about it, weren’t likely to continue in it when they moved to another place.  That’s bad news for denominations, but exciting news about the way it  is.

     I found myself thinking that  it would be an exciting time being a minister in the coming century.  Totally new ways of engaging people without the old ties and boundaries.

     That feeling was furthered by a reading of Lyle Schaller’s monthly “Parish Paper.”  He talks about the “contemporary church” and its worship.  As I read along I realized that some of the things he talks about as “contemporary” we had been doing 20 years ago.  Like shortening the service (we went from 70 minutes to 50 minutes - even 30 minutes in one service).  Like developing a conversational, teaching, relational style “rather than standing in a pulpit.”  Our largest and fastest growing service, from which most new members were drawn, had more music, no pipe organ, moved more rapidly, had a shorter sermon.  We gave up the pulpit robe - in fact, took out the pulpit - for all three services.

     Schaller’s 24 marks of a contemporary church along with Funk’s description of open theology added to the amazing impact of the World Wide Web cause me to feel excitement.  I almost envied those who are considering a venture into ministry in the twenty-first century.  Honest to Jesus, I did.

- Art Morgan