great quote from resonate.ca

thanks Jordon Cooper. Thanks newfound Resonate.ca Thanks Reggie McNeal:

"We have a church in [North America] that is more secular than the culture. Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God. Just when the church embraced strategic planning (linear and Newtonian), the universe shifted to preparedness (loopy and quantum). Just when the church began building recreation centers, the culture began a search for sacred space. Church people still think that secularism holds sway and that people outside the church have trouble connecting to God. The problem is that when people come to church, expecting to find God, they often encounter a religious club holding a meeting where God is conspicuously absent. It may feel like a self-help seminar or even a political rally. But if pre-Christians came expecting to find God -- sorry! They may experience more spiritual energy at a U2 concert or listening to a Creed CD."
Reggie McNeal, The Present Future via cooper

Comments

[erik]

My original comment on this post (verbatim; I almost hit post and then was distracted.):

what an absolutely dead-on summation of the reason for my utter lack of interest in formal church! I experience more of the divine on the living room floor with my son than in most church services.

When I returned to hit "post", I reread my comment and realized that, to be fair, what I actually experience with my son is warm-fuzzy feelings that I interpret as "experiencing the divine." Maybe I and Mr. Mcneal are confusing the divine with incidental emotional response, and the actual experience of the divine is wholly unrelated.

I like Creed and U2 just as much as the next guy, but is "spiritual energy" really an ideal that we want to strive for in church? Because to get it reproducibly, I think we're going to need to drink a lot more wine at the communion table than we do now.

[soup]

pomo police alert! "reproducibly smacks of modernity"

this has been a paid announcement.

[erik]

in this font, "pomo" and "porno" look very similar on my CRT. Only one pixel difference. Maybe you should choose a different nickname for your philosophical perspective...