Balancing Kiwis

Back from FUSION last week - a great couple of days . . . Day 1 was a leadership seminar with Dan Kimball, looking at contextualizing the Christian experience in today’s cultures.  A few notes from day 1:

People are now growing up without ever experiencing church - This is new and needs to be seen as a new context in which to experience God.

This is not just a generational gap - this is a gap in how one views the world.  Worldview differences are happening.

We have excitement for overseas, but need that here also.

Stereotypes have changed - Those who experienced TV evangelist scandals in the 80s put a lot of stock in what churches did about money - The next generation doesn’t care, as they never experienced that. They care about other things (community, experience)

Spirituality is something people are VERY interested in:

Metrospirituality is hip - as expressed by Kabbalah followers, talked about “Jesus is my Homeboy” shoirts being worn by Ashton Kutcher and others.  Massive interest in John Edwards for middle age and over.

Are we Citizens of the Kingdom, or Citizens of the Bubble?

Pathway to the Bubble:

Phase 1 - We become “Christians”, are excited and tell everyone

Phase 2 - We meet Christian friends and engage in church activities

Phase 3 - We become part of the subculture, evangelism changes from us to leaders - we invite folks to “our” concerts, crusades, meetings

Phase 4 - We complain about the culture, and choose church based on our proclivity to the music, preaching, etc.  How does it feed ME (instead of learning to feed ourselves)

By Phase 4 we are citizens of the bubble. 

Saw video of folks responses to Jesus, and then responses to Christians.  They were VERY positive about Jesus, but not about Chritians - They saw them in the bubble

More to come . . .

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.