Church Relevance .COM

ChurchRelevance.COM is a blog I've begun exploring that takes a hard look at one of the most important ecclesiological issues of the age: the relationship between the church and a changing world.

I believe that cultural awareness empowers us to be more Christlike. It helps us empathize. It helps us be relational. Most importantly, it helps us realize that people around the world are experiencing problems greater than our own. (source)

Kent Shaffer, the blogger, reminds me a lot of Geez. There are really interesting things happening at the edge where popular culture and Christian culture meet. I wish I could spend more time learning about it, but just sustaining and building a community in the main-line model is nearly overwhelming.


Yesterday as I was preparing for the Trad Com I was sitting the Vestry collecting my thoughts. Across from me were a series of plaques on the wall memorializing gifts made to the church to celebrate this or that person's life. They are all pre-fire. I can't help but be intimidated by them--they show me that this place has been around a lot longer than I have, and I worry that if we don't grow all that those plaques represent will be lost. It's a nice image for the anxiety of modern main-line ministry. A priest alone looking at plaques with names he doesn't recognize, wondering whether his efforts will be sufficient to "save" this place.

It's pure hubris, of course, for any of us in ministry (lay or ordained) to think that we are responsible for such things. The fact is that I'm just the 13th in a line that have looked at stone memories of the past with similar anxiety. Nor am I likely to be the last. Here we are, inheritors of a tradition, a building, a particular community of people, and we are supposed to continue the kingdom-building work. What an impossible task! Always was. I can't imagine how discouraged the disciples felt--let alone some of favorite saints in their dark hours. Think of Blessed James Otis Sargent Huntington when he founded the Order of the Holy Cross. Or Francis of Assisi when he started rebuilding that little stone chapel as winter was coming. The absurdity of Mission is evident.

It was time to start the service, but I could hear the click of a cane on tile telling me that the people weren't quite ready. When the clicking stopped I got up and walking into the church, prayerbook in hand.

-t