i believe that there is a coming crisis to the church in america. it is not a crisis of identity, or theology, or even a crisis of relevance. i believe that this crisis is something more subtle, more understated, and more entrenched than most would admit.
as i look around the christian landscape that i see before me i am struck with the realization that we are rapidly becoming a church that allows our ends to justify the means by which we operate.
a funny thing happened on the way to church this morning – or rather, once i got here. as i put my stuff down in the sanctuary getting ready to put the roman (check out the kindred page) in the nursery i felt my back give out and i was stuck sitting in my pew – not able to move.
the best part, and i do mean best, pastor ken’s message on the life of david somehow makes the pain seem necessary. Lord, thank you for blessing me and using me in my frailty much more than in my strength…
recently a good friend of mine posted a new entry into his blog (the details of which are not important to this entry, but it is a great read and he is a good guy so you can read it here: http://is.gd/dsA4t); what has prompted this entry was what came out in the ensuing discussion and what follows is a challenge to all pastors out in Christiandom.
the idea is simple, i want to lay a challenge down at the feet of anyone who calls themselves pastor, who is called pastor, who “is” a pastor, or who speaks as one who has a pastoral calling in your life – how do you define “pastor” in your context and what does it mean.
When I was an undergraduate at The Beach, I had a wonderful opportunity to write extensively about the discourse and rhetoric used by Y2K extremists in and around 1999. The crux of my paper was two fold, first American discourse is rooted in the apocoplypse and second consipiracy theory rhetoric surrounding the Y2K scare was no different and therefore not rooted in fact but in root metaphore. That is, the Y2K scare existed not because there was any real inherent issue, but America needed some sort of “impending doom” to focus on.
Continue reading “apolyptic discourse and the evangelic church”
Nathan R. Elson 