One of the griefs of middle age is the sober realization that your youthful dreams of changing the world are probably not coming to fruition.

I know, I know: what a cynical and sad way to start! I used to roll my eyes at older leaders who said similar things to me when I was in my twenties and starting out on this leadership journey.

A couple decades ago I was certain my generation would figure it out. There was no way we would repeat the mistakes of our parents and grandparents and the future of the church would be glorious and awesome.

Nope, we are repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

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Ok, that was the dark opening to my relaunching of this blog: nothing has changed, nothing has gotten better. Woohoo!

On the lighter side of things: I am still full of hope. The church is still a beautiful force for good, and (for better or for worse) the central player in God’s mission to restore shalom. I love this work and our little kingdom outpost here in Davis, CA. 

But, we are not the generation to “figure it all out” and the next one after us will probably repeat a lot of our mistakes. I rage against the fact that there is nothing new under the sun, but find this truth liberating at the same time. It right-sizes my grandiosity.

And so, from that place (cynically hopeful??) I want to process some of the things I’ve learned, some of the things I see, and where I am finding hope these days. Thanks for reading!

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Observation 1: The Church in 2024 is extremely boring.

Let’s define boring! According to the dictionary boring means: not interesting, tedious. Some synonyms include: repetitive and unimaginative. That last word is key because, and I want to be clear here, the opposite of boring is NOT entertainment. 

The answer is not a good show, but a holy imagination. Twenty years ago Alan Hirsh and Michael Frost wrote: “It is not too harsh a judgment to say that most people in the Western church simply cannot see beyond the Christendom mode they know so well.”

And, oooof, that is still true, even more so today than twenty years ago (imho)!

At the risk of being overly simplistic, here are two reasons why we’ve lost our imagination and settled for boring church.

First, outside the church, the church lost the culture wars. I know some people are still fighting, but these are the little battles that linger after the main war has ended. We are in a post-Christian world now and the church has been moved to the fringe. 

This is scary, and it breeds a circle-the-wagons/stop-taking-risks/keep-the-customers-happy mentality. I get it. There is a lot of pressure to maintain and a lot of fear of losing (people). But that fear is crippling and stifling. Nothing new happens because new might be too disruptive. 

Why disrupt when everything else feels in flux?!

Second, inside the church, churches have chosen pragmatism over imagination. There is a desperate searching for things that “work.” If church A is doing something that appears successful, let’s copy it, so that it works for us. Next thing you know, every church looks the same.

This is a failure of nerve and an abdication of responsibility. 

We are not robots, we are co-creators, shaping the future with God. We must reclaim imagination!

I will say, as a word of caution, daring to imagine a different future, and forging ahead into new territory is costly. I’ve been called some names, friends! But, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. 

This is just beginning…more to come next week. For now, let’s stoke that holy imagination and start dreaming again about a different future.