Stop the World! The Church wants to get on!

As the world moves into unknown, called post-modern, many churches would rather stay in their status quo, in the comfort of tradition, in the safety of what is accepted, celebrated and familiar. Yet, Jesus’ prayer is ever relevant for us to stay in the world and live a sanctified lifestyle in this world.
We have looked at four characteristics of the New World around us:
Experience rather than Experiment.
Participation rather than Performance.
Image Driven rather than Word based.
Connected rather than Individualistic.
While in the past knowing was at arms length, observing at a distance, examining without interacting, today’s world is begging for an embrace, knowing by being involved.
In the words of Leonard Sweet – “postmoderns cheerlead instead of critiquing, extol instead of exegeting, applaud instead of assessing.” It is in this mode of learning – emptying self of perceptions and biases, and allowing for new revelation that the Gospel has a new door of opportunities open to influence the world. The truth is eternal and unchanging, we are just looking at it with new eyes.
This concept is actually not new at all – it’s all about “back to the future!” It suggests that Love is as much a mode of knowledge as the old scientific methods of detached observation. Just like the Bible times – knowing=loving.
Traditions are stuck preserving the recent past. Even religious ones. One L.A. pastor Erwin McManus says: “Many of us love religion all too much and God all too little. Love ourselves too much and the world too little.”
This paradigm shift is recognized even by post-modern science. Quantum physicist Ed Schrödinger states: “The world has not been given to us twice – once in spiritual and once in material terms. The world has been given once!”
It is this world, where we live only once, that God has invited us to partner up in saving. Jewish wisdoms says “we don’t see things as they are, but as we are.” Whenever I think about the changes that take place around us, about lack of commitment and complacency in the church, I wish for one thing: urgency. What would it take for us believers to wake up with urgency that the Groom is coming, that our Lord Jesus is at the door? Maybe the world is being accelerated on purpose, to wake sleeping church up on the bumpy ride?
Don’t try to get off! As you wake up – stay on and tell people about our Destination, tell about purpose, hope, future. Tell them about your Savior, your hope, your dreams, and your purpose. Tell them about One Absolute that will always remain Absolute – Jesus, the Name above all Names.