Communication

It's A Miracle

The POSTMODERN twist

I'm at the First Presbyterian Church Evangelism conference in Nashville. Yesterday was filled with lot's of learning and discussion. Following an amazing southern-preaching celebration with a great message about spiritual obedience and blue-tooth technology yesterday morning, the afternoon was filled with some workshops. I attended a helpful one on Reaching Gen Xers (the Postmodern Generation). Interesting to be present in a workshop in which I was (and the other dozen or so 20 and 30somethings in the room) were not the "target audience" but rather the "target." At one point some passion bubbled up as it was vocalized that it's not an "US - THEM" situation but a "WE" situation. We want the community of faith of those who follow Jesus of Nazareth to grow, deepen and mature across generational, racial, cultural, and socio-economic barriers. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 28 "go to the ends of the earth in my name with my teaching."

Maybe the challenge isn't thinking about the ends of the earth, you know that corner of the planet under antartica where the boats go after they fall off the edge, but actually more about our neighbors, those who are closest to yet farthest from us? Often I hear the question, "Why can't we just all get along?" That seems to be skipping several steps of critical thought...first of all what do we mean by "WE"?

Thought I'd share the funny statute of donkeys playing music at the Grand Old Opry. Maybe it's a metaphor for our problem. Maybe we just can't really see what each other is like. I don't mean that we think of each other as wolves in sheep's clothing...but maybe more along the line of donkeys playing the guitar.