Kind of pretentious, huh?

That’s how I sometimes feel about my generation - they’re pretentious, self-righteous and arrogant. I hear all this talk of dissatisfaction with church and with our own Christian experience. Those who are unhappy are quick to talk about re-imagining the way we do church, doing away with traditions and getting at the true message of the gospel. And I’m sympathetic to their concerns. I’ve been unhappy with “business as usual” in my churches for some time. I’ve been forced to completely self-feed, because the Sunday service hasn’t even attempted to grow me spiritually. I want to find more meaningful expressions of worship and deeper teaching that will help me to grow as a follower of Christ. And I shouldn’t have to do that entirely on my own!

But, I listen to many of the dissatisfied voices in my generation and it seems they feel their unease is completely new in the history of Christianity. They speak and act as if this generation is operating in a historical vacuum. I hate to break it to everyone, but our generation is no more important or creative or smart than any other. Sure we have some different challenges, but the answer to our problems is not to reinvent the ecclesiastical to theological wheel. Many have dealt with these issues in the past and the recent past at that! Remember the Jesus People movement of the 1970s? Not even that long ago?

Perhaps we need to get back to some of the essential meanings of our traditions and beliefs, get rid of the “chaff”, but certainly we shouldn’t do away with tradition or belief systems all together. Where in the world do they think their understanding of “being a Christian” comes from? We’re not gleaning brand new understandings from Scripture that haven’t been fought over, debated and agreed upon by the great minds that came before us...

I think it’s extremely arrogant to feel that we’re the first generation to feel this way about the church or our world...