One of my favorite parts of being home is going back to Heritage where my father is the senior pastor. For obvious reasons, it is a community that is very close to my heart. Not only is my father the pastor, but I was also able to intern there for two summers during my undergraduate work: once with the junior high youth group and once with the senior high youth group. Going back to Heritage is encouraging to me; year after year seeing the same faithful faces that I remember and also seeing new faces and meeting new people who have become part of the Heritage community.
I appreciate and am encouraged by the older generations that I get to interact with while I’m at Heritage. The church that I am involved with in Philadelphia, liberti, does not have many of those who belong to the older generations in it. I’ve come to realize, in my post-”rage-against-the-machine” early 20s, that these older generations have much to teach us. These are people who have lived through many life experiences. People who have struggled with some of the same issues that I am now struggling with. People who have seen some of the harsh realities of life and are still being faithful in their Christian life.
I love these people…and God does too.
One thing that frightens me about parts of the emerging movement, and even parts of the missional movement, is that it alienates itself from these people. It seems that they are in such a rush to move onto a new style of doing church and doing theology that they have relegated the older generations to the realm of irrelevance. They are in such a rush to engaged themselves with the postmodern generation that they have forgotten about the older generations, as if they enacted some form of Occam’s Razor in order to trim the fat and get to the point: the point being, we need to do church differently.
The problem and the deep irony of the situation is that, unlike in Occam’s theory, the “fat” that is trimmed away is vital to the point: the point being, the body of Christ. Instead of viewing the older generations as stiff fundy-mundies who hold absolute truth over our heads like the Sword of Damocles, why do we not view them as members of the body of Christ and fellow brothers and sisters who need to be ministered to? In a real and significant way, parts of the emerging and missional movements have spiritually euthanized these generations by their practice, but then speak about “unity” and “love” and “a multiplicity of theological opinions” in their words. Is this really consistent? Or do we only unite with, show love to, and give theological charity to those who are card carrying members of our epistemological system (i.e. postmodernity)?
The fact of the matter is that the older generations matter to God. They are people who are hurting and who need the love of Christ and the love of the community of Christ in their lives. How can any church claim to have love for their neighbor and yet sacrifice their brother? To put it differently and more sharply, how is it consistent to the teachings of Jesus to love the unbeliever by living missionally but then be completely negligent in their attitude of love towards their fellow brother or sister in Christ?
The church does need to be missional and does need to reach out to the culture. That’s taken as read. But it also needs to be reminded that believers of all generations and all epistemological systems are indwelt by the Spirit of God, are fellow co-heirs with Christ, and need to be ministered to. Without the older generations within our churches we will turn into a bunch of Timothys running around with no Pauls to keep us in check. People who have experienced life and who have experienced years of faithful service in the church of Christ. Instead of viewing these people as liabilities that we need to get rid of, why do we not view these people as gifts to the church? People who can both encourage and be encouraged; who can both serve and be served.
My heart aches for the church. And to see people alienated simply because they were born in a different generation and like different music doesn’t go over well with me. And, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think Christ, who gave his life for these people, would be to excited about it either.
10 January 2008 at 7.26 pm
Interesting post, refreshing actually. I was struggling with a lot of this stuff a few months ago. God really answered that struggle/prayer by letting me work at the Alliance. I’m learning a lot from these fundie folks who have super genuine hearts and love to learn about the Word of God. If only trivial things like musical instruments didn’t cause rifts…
11 January 2008 at 11.16 am
[...] Boulet on “Spiritual Euthanasia and the Emerging Church.” This ones not getting the traffic it [...]
11 January 2008 at 12.08 pm
Right-o.
In our church both the older people (55+) and our younger people (>35) are both giving and preferring one another for the sake of our 40-somethings. It’s a good mix (to minister to all and reach our particular community). I have to admit how nice it is when our young worship team plays but that is because of my preference. I think it takes maturity to say, “I’m willing to forsake my preference in order to worship together and in order to honor and prefers others”.
It is super hard not to divide a church when different types of services are offered. We had a trad service and a contemporary service for years, and it stunk. No one in the trad service knew the people in the cont. service. Finally our older people told our senior pastor they were willing to give up their preferences so that we could have 2 identical services. This allowed to grandparents to worship with grandchildren. I should say the younger people were willing to give up their music and other preference so that the older people would feel included as well.
Overall, it is not easy and takes some serious maturity.
11 January 2008 at 1.04 pm
I feel you there. I pastor a church of about 85 people between 20 and 35. We are constantly praying that older people will join us, but it seems that our way of celebrating community and worship is just not attractive to an older generation. It is something that I’ve always wanted to happen, but it just doesn’t.
We write all our own music and liturgy, and original art is always culture inspired, and cultures almost always are associated with age. It’s just the way it works out.
Good post.
11 January 2008 at 1.22 pm
TP- I would also say that you guys are in a metro area and are contextualizing to your community (in what you do at your church). Plus, you had a young gathering from the start. It’s not like you’ve kicked out the blue-hairs in FL
EliePop and I had a good conversation about this very thing, you’ve married an awesome woman!
11 January 2008 at 6.11 pm
Thanks for addressing an issue that many don’t even realize is an issue. It’s difficult to be relevant to a wide range of ages, but diversity in age can add a richness and wisdom to a church. I believe it’s important for a church to reflect its neighborhood, so if there are older people in the area, reaching them should be important. I also attend a church full of younger people, but I adore the handful of older people. It’s a beautiful thing to see college students interact with 60-year-olds and grandparents sing with their grandchildren in the annual Christmas program. I believe the younger generation should make more of an effort to show the older generation that they care, because I think it tends to be the other way around most of the time.
11 January 2008 at 10.06 pm
Great post. On Christmas I was talking to a lady who is part of a church that planted another church. All the young people left to do the plant, since it takes so much energy to plant a church. The problem? The lady said there is no energy left at the mother church – they just left all the old folks there.
12 January 2008 at 10.33 am
Well put…as a tweener…it’s kind of cool to see both extremes and wonder…huh?
12 January 2008 at 7.31 pm
Also, it was great getting to know you…if you are interested…here is a link to me…
http://hwoodthoughts.blogspot.com/
16 January 2008 at 12.23 pm
Thanks for the great time when you were home and the super job you did in my classes and in the pulpit. You know that I wouldn’t give the pulpit resonsibilities to many people….then again, there aren’t many like you, I love you son…and I love that you love the Church!
19 January 2008 at 7.25 am
Thanks Art for a great post, that I need to come back to at least once a week to read.
19 January 2008 at 9.04 am
[...] Good reminder from Art Boulet. 2. Cold advice. 3. The NYTimes did this just for Michael Kruse — so he could tell the blog [...]