Institutional Christianity is trembling, teetering, falling. And that’s a good thing. Crisis and opportunity tend to go hand in hand, and those who embrace this crisis have the chance to make an enormous impact. Freed from the weight of bureaucratic religion and static tradition, a new kind of life can emerge.
Now is the time to carry out bold experiments in Christian discipleship. We’re living in a very interesting moment, an in-between space where the shell of the old order has not yet completely crumbled, and the little seedlings of the new are just barely peeking up from beneath the soil. It’s an exciting time to be alive.
It’s a scary moment, too. No one wants to die, and none of us wants to see the tradition and community that has been so life-giving for us go up in the next forest fire. We’d rather keep throwing water on dead wood than face the chaos and uncertainty that would come with that conflagration.
But what if we welcomed the flames? Instead of trying to save the forest as we have known it, what if we opened ourselves to the possibilities that come from newly cleared horizons?
How would our lives change if we came to see ourselves as the instigators of something new? Rather than the exhausting rearguard action that many of us are now engaged in, what if we stopped trying to prop up the old order? Some of our cherished organizations we would need to lay down. Many of our congregations would need to be radically re-organized. Cherished habits and assumptions would be shaken up. Sounds terrifying. Sounds like fun!
We all look back to the white-hot movements that shook the world. Whether it’s the early Quakers, the Reformers, or the early Church – we are inspired by the boldness of these now-mythical bands of saints who risked everything for their faith. One thing that all of them have in common is that those who experienced them were convinced that the Spirit should triumph over the Letter.
All truly apostolic movements are marked by holy mischief. When we’re living in the power of Jesus, we can’t help getting into trouble. The first Christians abandoned both the pagan and Jewish customs that were getting between them and a more living experience of God. The early Quakers were beaten, imprisoned, and killed for actively challenging the powers that be.
Holy rebels in every age have sown the seeds of new life, joyfully subverting the status quo. We break up the hardened ground of ossified tradition and decadent authority. We risk our lives, our fortunes, our very identities to be faithful to the new thing that Christ is doing in our midst. Knowing that the way of Jesus comes with persecutions, we embrace the life of discipleship as a path to expressing the love we receive in him.
This is an invitation. You and I can be part of this new thing that God is doing. We can participate in a movement that will shape the face of the world for generations to come. We can choose to side with the new life that is brewing, down at the grassroots. In the face of misunderstanding and resistance, even hostility and fear, we can become children of light.
What does this look like for you? What are the signs of new life that are sprouting in your neighborhood, your city? What opportunities are there for you in this time of uncertainty and transition? How might you need to change in order to be faithful to this new movement that is emerging in the shadow of the present order? What in you needs to die so that Christ can live?
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