Rebecca Brown's Session 1 Notes Spiritual Formation Summit, April 2002
I. Introduction (who am I?)
“Trenches” - Columbine Kid
Video (@young) - see Portfolio
II. WHAT IT WAS-(brief)
A. CD, Collage, Sun Article
B. Music & Focus
1. Portfolio - philosophy
2. Focus examples-<CD Guide Bk part 1
-<CD Guide Bk part 2
-<Streets = one song
C. Return the three;-
D. Keep copies of Principles, Statements,etcIII. Ministry to TWO (2 different challenges)
A. Church Kid-(Convictions or Post it notes)
B. NON- Church Kid (ER Clinic)
IV. Black Folder (take with you)
A. Explain contents
B. Observations- but before…V. A Context for Gen X Y
A. Marriage-Analogy (Truth parents)
B. Place Gen X / Y in this contextOBSERVATIONS FROM THE TRENCHES
1.-WEAK INSTITUTIONAL INCLINATION
A. skeptical of the institution
B. Religion is a joke (Darwin, the fish war, televangelists)
C. Religion is not a “playing card”2.-Keen spiritual interest- seeking
A. Standing outside a broken phone booth…
-(sermon on line)
- (‘Y’ out front)
B. Hungry for a sense of meaning/values - thru TV, Movies, music
(Think sex should mean something…)
C. With no real steering mechanism (compass) either:
1. become super ambitious, materialistic
2. or check out
D. Seem blatantly irreverent - but spiritually intrigued
-(Dogma, Rent, …get past the profanity)
SO, How do we minister to Gen X & Y?
1.-Walk in their shoes
-“The 30 years principle”2. Teach through what is trusted, safe, understood
- (not as gimmick)
A. The pop media, movies, music
B. Jesus - farm stories
3.-Work WITH their place and stage of development
A. Use Their risk-taking quotient, don’t suppress it
B. Not Creeds & Dogma
C. Teach them to fly - a faith that will enable
D. Let them discover it themselves (don’t manipulate them)4.-Integrate the Sacred with all other known reality and truth- (Stop the divison!)
A. Affirm secular & Scientific truth
B. Faith asks you to believe in a spiritual dimension to life that you cannot see, but it never asks you to disbelieve the things you can see.
(We need to make this clear)The CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH
1.-Can the Church Today provide what Religion always has- a world view?
Religion can be:
A room with no view
A room with a limited view
A room with a world view2.There is a pluralistic world at our front door…
A. we can either open or close
B. The “world” over there is as close as your front door, your neighbor, your computer,3.-If we CLOSE…
A. We cease to offer what religion has for all time
B. Then our alternative is to dress up that “room with no view” with……….
Creating a counter culture that imitates the outside world,
But does not converse with it.C. This gets more and more difficult = Christian industry/marketing
(read-about F Graham)4.-If we OPEN
A. we give a true world view - we embrace truth
B. we knock down the walls and blow open the size of our “story”
C. We redraw God
D. We bring the entire human family and universe into the picture.
E. We evolve!!!5.-We Close, not just because we fear the SIZE-
We have a growing tendency to close
because of the pain & problems in the world.A. Columbine is a touchstone
for an examination of American culture-
And its reflection in the American high school social scene between the moralist retreatist
and a society in pain.B. There are TWO ways to look at church and religion
1. as a fortress
- to protect our youth from “the world”
- to protect our heritage
2. Or to provide a world view and meaning to life.I fear too many in the modern church are looking over the shoulder of McDonald’s (as to how to serve more faster).
6.-The Packaging is not the problem- the package is!
A. The Presentation can look up to date, but if the message is not, it will soon be unsatisfying.
B. It is not the stained glass which is the obstacle, in fact -1. most Gen X/Y want heritage and roots
2. they are not looking for church to be like MTV
3. They like the mystical & transcendent.7. SO, can we find new wineskins, new parables?
- The wine (truth) has been carried in many different skins:
Scripture, teachers, nature, parables
A. There are Divine threads in everything - be creative
B. We need to affirm secular truth and be intentional in our marriage of the two truths by teaching through the secular.
>When we borrow secular techniques but remain at war with secular truth
= THAT LACKS INTEGRITY!
(Gen X/Y laughs at Christian R n R)8.-WE NEED the marriage of science and Religion in our day.
A. Religion needs to speak, to provide for the human spirit that which science cannot. (Both truth parents)
B. As in a good marriage, each partner is not the same, so the two must affirm each other, compliment and respect each other, so that the world reaps the benefits.
The-future will need such a marriage - stem cell research
C. In times of unequal marriage -
1. Galileo (Science) was under house arrest - not good for our world
2. Today the church has lost its voice and right to speak - divorce… Science laughs at our attempts to speak - This is not good for our world.9.- Religion has much to offer Gen X & Y
A. a heritage, roots
B. a sense of the transcendent
C. community
D. Spiritual discipline (looking for this)
(and service)
E. The institutional place to make the call (for 1000s yrs)
F. The intergenerational experience Gen X Y lackTHE BIG QUESTIONS
1. Can we open a window on our faith without losing it?
2. Can we see our theology / dogma in a non-exlusionary perspective?
3. Can we keep the heritage and still evolve?
4. Can we redraw God and bring the entire universe and human family into our picture.-
5. Can we provide a context for other faiths?
6. Can we create new rituals, liturgies, new wineskins?
7. Can we marry sacred and secular truth, affirming both while celebrating the uniqueness of each?
8. Can we love Jesus’ way while loving our neighbors who have come a different way?-
(Can we love the finger pointing us to the moon, but not miss the moonlight in our brothers eyes that has found the moon by way of another finger?)
9. Can we “take and eat” or will we, like Peter on the roof say “not so Lord?”
10.-Can we gamble Christianity,
-or will we return it to the Master-
-unspent and buried in the sand?
