something new

Boy it's been a long time since I've updated anything here...

Two Sunday's ago I preached a sermon that raised some interesting discussion at church. The text was Isaiah 43:18-25 with the key part being: "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

And the topic was what new things I see God doing in the Church. It seems to me there are at least 5 movements of God from

- dogma to relationship (a check list of beliefs will be much less important than the web of relationships that hold us together as a people of faith)

- institution to community (the institutional side of any given church will disappear while its identity as a true community will grow stronger)

- culture to counter-culture (in our history, church was at the center of the culture... we are moving back to the margins where we began and where we can do the work God has called us to do)

- large to small (most/all of the futures I'm envisioning cannot work with numbers that are too large)

- low commitment to high commitment (likewise, high commitment will be needed to be the church in a changing world)

I truly believe that the Church as we know it will not exist in a relatively short time - perhaps a generation - and that God is beginning a reformation as important as any that have come in the past. What do you think?