That challenge is one we are willing to accept...

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win” – President Kennedy, Rice University September 12, 1962

A little over 50 years ago, President Kennedy gave his famous “moon speech.” It gave the lofty and seemingly impossible goal that we would reach the moon by decade’s end, which of course we did. I am great lover of history and metaphors and as I watched this historical nugget pass by I wondered about our church and our faith and the challenges we face. Following God is not an easy thing to do. It was brutally difficult for Peter and the rest of the disciples and even though they had Jesus and the very voice of God guiding them, they made a lot of mistakes along the way. They lived and existed in a time where the world is changing, where the life and death of Jesus Christ began a change that  world that stretches across the known world and will centuries to work out. Following Christ  was not easy for Martin Luther, a young German monk whose ideas on theology, particularly salvation and grace, once again changed the western world and still continue to impact society and the church.

Now we stand at the edge of another change, one known by more and more as the Great Emergence. I spent this past week at Lutheridge learning about what it might mean for our future. It is one that began in the church but also a movement that promises to radically change society, economics and every facet of the world we live in. Some have said this change will be as radical as the change that Martin Luther helped to start, another Reformation. Others have said the change will be as radical as the changes that happened in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries. This is not to say a new "savior" will emerge or a new religion, but rather the way people understand what it means to be a church and a follower of Jesus will radically change. It may mean the end of the institutional church, the end of denominations or simply a radical reordering of them. It is really hard to say. I could go on and on about this. It is wonderfully exciting and rather terrifying at the same time. The unknown is usually like that. 

If you would like to know more about this movement. I would suggest checking books by Phyllis Tickle and Brian McClaren. Both are religious leaders and scholars and both are at the cutting edge of the Emergence. To get an idea of how this is affecting the church now, see this short video by ELCA Pastor Jay Gamelin: The State of the Church . Pastor Gamelin and Dr. Tickle were speakers at our leaders' retreat and talk brilliantly about the possibilities that are coming for our church. It may not be an easy road ahead, but particularly for the Lutheran tradition with it's strong theological and ethical base, this challenge could lead to an amazing rebirth of our faith and ministries.

            I have a lot of hope for this Great Emergence, I believe it is the revitalization Christianity needs and it will take us back to the spiritual roots that caused the first Christians to face lions without fear or regret. I have no idea where it will take us and I have no idea what the church, pastors and congregations will look like. I just trust in who is leading us there: God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the One whose love and faithfulness does not change in the midst of all the other changes. I was very nervous as I listened to all these changes this past week but one section of scripture from Romans 14 kept coming back to me: We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. It is one I hold onto, because it reminds me wherever I go, no matter what happens, God is with me and I belong to Christ. 

          So I look forward to facing this challenge, not because we have the best people in our church, or the best churches, or the best theology (it's strong, not perfect). Rather I am willing to accept this challenge because it is Christ who calls me to it. I choose to move forward with hope because I know that this is God's work, just as the other great tranformation have been. I have faith in who I am following and so I won't worry about the what and where of it all. I hope that as we all face great changes in our lives we have that same sort of hope and trust. Because whether we live our die, whether our world changes and our church is flipped upside down and everything is different, we still belong to God. And God's love and faithfulness, particularly in the person of Jesus Christ, never fails us and never leaves us behind.