Category Archives: generations

“Blab-casting”

Posted on by
Reply

I recently read an essay by Elizabeth Drescher on the “rd Magazine” website entitled “Turn Off, Slow Down, Drop In: The Digital Generation Reinvents the Sabbath“

I love this paragraph:

At the other end of the spectrum, fantasies that the application of new
technologies to traditional practices will, in themselves, enrich life
in general and spirituality in particular are no less misguided. Take a recent blog post on the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, which shared with italicized surprise the utterly unremarkable finding that “use of visual projection equipment in worship is not
related to church growth.” No kidding? Survey says: a dull video or
lame music is just dull as a preacher blah-blah-blah-ing on in person
with no relational interest in or connection to the people to whom they
are blab-casting. So, too, an engaging, interactive minister who
genuinely connects to people and encourages their connection to one
another is going to be compelling face-to-face and in
technologically-enabled engagements (see, for example, @texasbishop, @MeredithGould, @jaweedkaleem).  [emphasis mine]

For some reason, and this gets to some of the other stuff in the article and in the life of the Church in general (particularly the Mainline denominations and more particularly the Episcopal Church, of which I am a priest), we think we must manage God.  After all, if we don’t manage God everything will just fall apart and we will devolve into nothingness. (Yeah, and how is that going for us?)

The Episcopal Church is in crisis because we are a dying institution (has little to do with the gay-issue or the conservatives leaving the Church – although it has a whole lot to do with it… irony).  So many people are rushing to do triage and to save this venerable national treasure, but the ways and means they are trying to save it are little more than the same old things that have been going on for the last 40 years that have gotten us into the mess to begin with.  They dress up these tired old ways and means in hipster clothing or Emergent garb thinking that things like PowerPoint presentations, bad rock-ish music, hip-cool candles and flashy lights, casting off vestments, or better yet taking out pews, sidelining the Prayer Book, explaining away Scripture, or outlawing Rite I language will magically make the Church all rad (yes, I know) so that streams of young people will suddenly fill the empty spaces. What they end up doing is just another form of blab-casting. 

What we so often forget is that Jesus is the one that builds the Church, and if we so manage affairs of the Church according to trendy culture dictates that Jesus is nicely tucked away out of site, well, we have already failed.

There are streams of young people filling churches. Just not our churches.  Around where I live (Brooklyn, NY), within an 1/2-hour walk I can take you to at least 5 churches that are in the hundreds of members each and are made up almost exclusively with those under, say, 32 years of age.  They beg for people over 40 to come to their churches.  St. Paul’s, where I serve, has a very close relationship with a few of these churches.  You know what they are doing in their services?  Old Hymns song out of hymnals. Traditional liturgies (they are rediscovering the significance of liturgy).  We use Rite I at St. Paul’s for our principle liturgy (Rite II other times – we aren’t protesting anything), but when we talk about changing to Rite II, it is the 20-somethings  who have been coming in greater numbers over the last 5 years who protest the loudest.

This is why my work in the Imago Dei Society/Initiative isn’t focused on being trendy, but on understanding emerging generations and emerging culture to find out not how to become like them, but to discover how to translate the Faith to them in ways they can understand, form them into consequential Christians, and learn how to receive, living into and pass on the enduring Tradition in its Anglican form. This doesn’t play too well when those attempting triage are bent on re-hashing the latest hip-cool thing the culture throws at us (even when all the evidence shows that what younger people are looking for is something substantially different from all that hype and manipulation). 

Year of the Beard

Posted on by
Reply

If you’re going to do it, then do it right!  Time lapsed photography of a student and the growing of his beard. It’s fun.  As the description says,

“As he grows a beard, Corey Fauver takes a picture a day for a year. That
isn’t exactly a new idea, but he twists it by changing his location
slightly with each picture, creating a stop-motion journey across his
campus.”


Year Of The Beard – Watch more Funny Videos

Dabbling

Posted on by
Reply

From a short article in Newsweek (Feb. 14th edition, pg. 6) dealing with e-books and the future of print books into the future.

“The Future of the Book” – from James Billington, librarian of Congress:

“The new immigrants don’t shoot the old inhabitants when they come in. Our technology tends to supplement rather than supplant.  How you read is not as important as: will you read? And will you read something that’s a book – the sustained train of thought of one person speaking to another? Search techniques are embedded in e-books that invite people to dabble rather than follow a full train of thought. This is part of a general cultural problem.” (emphasis mine)

What impact might this “dabbling” have on the “train of thought” of the Gospel? What impact might this development have on already short attention spans?  How might this impact our engagement with knowledge, that requires sustained and perhaps linear processes? How might this change teaching and learning?

I believe this is an important idea or consequence to investigate.

Brain Freeze

Posted on by
Reply

I was looking through Flickr.com this morning.  I’m in the process of uploading my Israel/Jordan photographs to my account.  I noticed a couple photographs from people I follow and ended up on this guys website.  “Mer” is his moniker, perhaps his real name… I’m not sure.  Anyway, one post on his blog caught my attention.  It is entitled, “Anthony’s computer is giving him diverticulitis.”  The post is presented as a conversation – whether actual or as commentary I don’t know – between I suspect Mer and Anthony.

“I don’t know my best interest.”

“It appears that way.”

“No I need someone to come into my life….someone maybe hired that comes in and protects me from this culture.”

“What?”

“That person would put me on a cultural diet.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I
would have to go into texting or cable news deprivation for months.
That person would demand me to use a land line for a prescribed amount
of time. Putting a lap band around my laptop use.”

“Slapping mobile devices out of your hand.”

“This person would come into my life and begin cutting away at the obesity of distraction.”

“Sounds like textration.”

“I
need this. I love this sort of socialist counselor. I have ran amok.
Gorged myself on the hedonistic part of the culture and come away with
diseases. All because I like a big bowl of societal High Fructose Corn
Syrup.”

“Sounds like it includes table spoons of dramatic.”

“It
is me. I wasn’t built for this society. As a kid I sat with my on
internet; my imagination. Using Army men as play station. I should be 90
already and getting ready to die soon. This disdain for life is coming
too early. I just need prescriptions of hand written letters,
socializing without cellphones and news deprivation.”

“OK. Your point?”

“I can’t do it alone. Somebody has to come in. I need a trainer.”

“You think you could find someone online?”

Consider the article in this week’s Newsweek entitled, “The Science of Making Decisions,” or “Brain Freeze,” concerning what the constant barrage of input into our brains does to our brains and our ability to make good decisions:

“The Twitterization of our
culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended
consequence–our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions.”

There are diminishing returns to the constantly plugged in society.

So, Mer’s post concerning Anthony’s statement, or conflict with himself – does this present a coming state of mind of many of us?  Everything I read tells me that we need to give our brains a rest.  By doing so, we are able to assimilate, contemplate, and make much more wise and satisfying decisions.

What happens when immediate trumps wise?



New or New Again

Posted on by
Reply

Part of the mandate of the Imago Dei Initiative is to understand emerging culture and emerging generations so that the Church can meet people where they are – outside the prevailing, some call “normal,” walls of the Church and ways of thinking about life and faith.

This isn’t easy, often times, because pouring new wine into old wine skins more-often-than-not results in the rupturing of the old wine skin.  This makes people nervous!  This makes institutions nervous, even while the people that are the institutions know that change will occur regardless of thought, comfort, or even permission.

Currently, the Imago Dei Initiative is experimenting with a few different things under a tag-line that goes something like this: “Finding new ways of living a profound Faith in simple ways.”  Again, more-often-than-not, these “new” ways are really the discovery again of the ways that have resonated with the human heart and soul from generation-to-generation.  All things are made new again.

If we pay attention to the demographic data, emerging generations are seeking out those kinds of faith expressions that demonstrate something that is tried, is proven, is not trendy, that actually proclaims a belief in something specific, and is lasting.  There is an expectation for questioning and wrestling with the issues, but there is an appreciation for honesty and being up-front about what is believed and proclaim to be true.

For example, churches all over the place that are full of young folks are picking up the Book of Common Prayer and are finding in its ancient forms and liturgies something intriguing, life-giving, and that has been missing in most of their faith experiences.  The Anglican Tradition of the Christian faith is well situated for this generation – an openness to difference, debate, and questions; simple belief assertions that get at the core of the Faith; and the slow, formative elements of ancient liturgies.  Although, the preoccupation of political and theological warfare going on in the Episcopal Church (and the break-way new “Anglican” denominations) right now does little to draw younger folks to the institution that is supposed to be the  holders of the Anglican Tradition in the U.S. – the Episcopal Church.  We’ve got to experience again is not politics or social-agendas, but the experience of God in relationship.

Younger folks also think very differently about pet issues that the Church has been wrestling with for the last 40 years (since the rise of the 1960’s/Baby Boomer mentality).  Younger folks don’t look with disdain and mistrust upon institutions.  There is a draw to that which is ancient in the Tradition.  Younger folks do not think the same way about issues of race, sexism, homophobia, political and social liberalism or conservatism.  These are not the issues most younger folks dwell on (with exceptions, of course) – and not that these issues are unimportant.  

For example, most younger women I’ve encountered and talked with don’t have the same issues with gender-inclusive language as do Baby Boomers.  Younger women realize that the Scriptures and the Tradition were developed in a different time under different circumstances, so if male pronouns are used today (in accordance with the actual Greek or Hebrew word in Scripture that is male) there isn’t the same feeling of disenfranchisement or diminishment or exclusion or an expectation of subservience to males.  Their womanhood is not threatened by male language or imagery in their original forms.

So, considering all this, how does the Church do things differently without a preoccupation with trendiness?  We focus on Christian formation within our relationships with God and one another.  Another way is to rediscover or relearn the ancient forms of the Tradition – that which has survived through persecution and trial among a multitude of cultures throughout the past 2,000 years.  This is what we are trying to do. 

How?  Well, here are a couple things:

1. The Imago Dei Sunday Evening Service at St. Paul’s Church – we are a new and still small gathering of people who wish to experience the presence of God in contemplative and meditative ways.  We use the tried and true form of Evening Prayer (perhaps Evensong at some point) with lots of time for silent/quiet contemplation.  We hear the Word of God, we pray for our needs – most importantly we desire to grow closer to God.  We end our time together with the celebration of Holy Communion in a very simply form.  We meet Sunday evenings at 5:00 PM and the service lasts almost an hour.  We attempt to form a spiritually conducive atmosphere with candles, bells, incense, quiet, and a beautifully rich physical space.

2. The Imago Dei Red Hook Gathering – we are organizing a small group of folks in the Red Hook neighborhood that come together to support and challenge one another to live more fully into our Christian Faith in simple ways.  The main purposes of this kind of gathering is to build relationships, to hear how we are growing in our Faith, and to support one another in all the challenges we face in our chaotic world.  We are meeting in a more public space twice a month for about an hour and a half.

3. The Imago Dei Home Group in Carroll Gardens – this is similiar to the “Gathering” mentioned above, but we meet in a member’s home.  This affords us the ability for a little more privacy and intimacy.  We spend time catching up on each others’ lives as we gather together, we transition into a time of quiet, of prayer, and then we discuss how Scripture interacts with our lives.

4. 2nd Saturdays for Good Works Initiative – every second Saturday of the month (well, almost every one – see the Events page for updates) we come together to do some sort of good work as we give of our time and talents to serve others.  Fundamentally, the purpose is to help us grow in our own faith by better understanding God’s will for our lives, but other people receive the benefit of our work.  This past year, we adopted Coffey Park in Red Hook as our project.  We helped the permanent gardener (John Clarke) and community folks who volunteer to help keep the park in good shape.  It is great exercise, a good time to meet new people and grow closer to people we know, and it is good for the soul.

5. The “Faith meets Art meets Space” project – this is a formation project for artists of all kinds that focuses on how our Christian Faith influences our creative impulse. How does our faith and the physical space influence our art?  The goal is for the artist to create something new while investigating how faith and space inspire them.  There will be during May 13-15, 2011 exhibits and performances at St. Paul’s Church that presents our new art.

6. “The Church and ‘Post-Constantinian’ Society?” The Imago Dei Society in cooperation with other groups is planning a conference during the late-fall of 2011 to discuss how we live as individuals and the Church within a culture and society that is becoming “Post-Constantian” – a culture that no longer supports a common Christian understanding of life and our place in the world.  More info coming…

These are just a few things that we are doing and would like to do.  The goal of an intentional-community where residents live for a time to help develop the habits of the Christian Spiritual Disciplines is in the works.  Anyone is welcome to help in this project of discovering new ways of living the profound Faith in simply ways.

Signs of the Times: Young Adult Fiction

Posted on by
Reply

There is an interesting conversation in the New York Times “Room for Debate” section of the Opinion pages under the title, “The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction.”  The conversation is among several authors of young adult-literature and professors related to young adult development and culture concerning the trend in young-adult literature toward dark and dystopian themes.

Here are the two questions up for conversation:

  1. Why do bestselling young adult novels seem darker in theme now than in
    past years?
  2. What’s behind this dystopian trend, and why is there so much
    demand for it?

Several people contribute their opinions.  I particularly like Paolo Bacigalupi’s essay on “Craving Truth-Telling” and Maggie Stiefvater’s “Pure Escapism.”

A different religion?

Posted on by
Reply

“We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that it is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition… It is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized.  Rather, more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by quite a different religious faith.”

-Christian Smith with Melinda Denten; quote from: Almost Christian: what the faith of our teenagers is telling the American Church, by Kendra Creasy Dean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010; p.3)

Cover of

Cover via Amazon

I’m very interested in reading this book.  The quote above fits very well with what I have been observing and experiencing over the last decade, at least.  Much of the “Christianity” I witness from both the supposed “Left” and “Right” are combining into something that is only vaguely recognizable as Christianity when couched within the historic tradition of the Faith.

I believe this is one of many reasons, albeit a more prominent reason, for the distrust and poor image the U.S. Church in general has among younger people.  I believe this is one reason for the decline in the success of the Church in the U.S. to truthfully engage the emerging culture and emerging generations in ways that resonate with them – ways that actually smack of Jesus’ example and his teachings.

Here are excerpts from the opening page from Kendra Dean, the author:

“Let me save you some trouble.  Here is the gist of what you are about to read: American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith – but it does not concern them very much, and it is not durable enough to survive long after they graduate from high school.

“One more thing: we’re responsible.

“…the religiosity of American teenagers must be read as a reflection of their parents’ religious devotion (or lack thereof) and, by extension, that of their congregations. Teenagers themselves consistently demonstrate an openness to religion, but few of them are deeply committed to one.”

What in the world are we doing with this ancient faith in these days that makes this faith that has endured 2,000 years of trial, persecution, within a multitude of cultures and languages, so “not durable” among our young? 

I agree with Dean, but we have to face squarely that we (those who are currently leading or moving into leadership) are failing the One-Who-Came-to-Gives-Us-Life-to-the-Full among the young.  I don’t blame them; the fault is ours – “by our fault, by our own fault, by our most grievous fault.”

Is it really the case that we would rather justify our own selves (all of our pet and “insightful” theories) while our actions speak volumes of faithlessness, neglect, polarization, hubris, greed, hypocrisy?  I think so.  Read the results of Barna’s research in their book, “unChristian.”

We’ve got to end this. Lord, make speed to help us!

Millennials, by Millennials

Posted on by
Reply

Form the blog, Blatant Careerist, comes this article by Ryan Healy entitled, “Twentysomething: Why I don’t want Life/Work Balance,” on attitudes concerning work/life blending, older people, liking one’s career, and the like.

He writes:

I wholeheartedly believe that my life has a purpose. My purpose is to be
successful, genuinely happy and to make a difference in this world
somewhere along the way. Not a single one of these values can take a
backseat to another. The balance doesn’t work, we already know this. I
don’t want to choose. I want a blended life…

The lines between work and life have been blurred for years. I have
decided to embrace this fact and work on the best blend for my life.
Whether this means working hours that fit around my schedule or being
paid for results rather than the amount of hours worked, I’m not sure. I
will leave that question to the management consultants and human
resource experts. In the meantime my peers and I will keep searching for
this blended life, while everyone else continues to run in circles
failing to achieve their so-called balance.

His attitude on enjoying work is positive and he doesn’t seem to so easily compartmentalize his life.  Plus, his comment on the reality of those who try to find balance in life and work are true, for the most part.  Really, that comment is a commentary on the failure of most to find such a balance and there are many reasons for this.  It does not, of course, negative the healthy benefits of balance in life! Yet…

The alternative or difference given to our society by the teachings of Christ present the concept of Sabbath rest – a time apart. This in no way negates life/work blending, but the possibility of self-expansion and intentional self-reflection in realms and ways not generally supported by our culture any longer (aside from just giving our brains a rest).

I wonder if there will be substantial change when family, particularly children, come into play?  I know that many childless couples relationships are far less “traditional” in terms of communication, time spent together, work and life, etc.  Yet, kids have a way of changing one profoundly and one’s view, attitudes, and actions on all manner of things.  If extended adolescents is really what is going on here, when Ryan and others really do enter into adulthood (and, of course, that whole statement is up for grabs) will all this change?  Will he end up taking on more of an attitude of the “older people” who value their “home time” that he is so careful not to interrupt?

Life Blurring & Blending

Posted on by
Reply

Here is an article from the New York Times by Marci Alborher entitled, “Blurring by Choice and Passion,” in the “Small Business” section on job shifting.  She begins by writing about growing up and the blurring that seemed to take place between the life and work of her parents, who owned a string of shore-side motels along the Jersey shore.

She then writes about her shift in careers from being a lawyer (as a protest against her parents’ blurred lifestyle) to being a journalist, and finds that she has returned to the “blended” or “blurred” work/life lifestyle.  As she writes, as a blurring or blending takes place, it has a lot to do with how much you enjoy your work – seems obvious.

She writes:

“But somehow, I have found my way back to a life with few boundaries.
And I rarely complain about it. Whether you see yourself as a workaholic
or as someone who merely blurs the line between work and play has lot
to do with whether you like your work… Could it be that blurring and blending are the new work/life balance? …In
addition to entrepreneurs like my parents, blurring is rampant among
those who fashion a career out of a passion…”

Yet, I wonder how an effect balance is reached and kept that mitigates
against burnout or obsession?  It can be hard to keep oneself balanced,
at least that is what I find in my own life.

Yes, my work and life are just about completely blurred and blended.  Perhaps that is the nature of being a priest, where the passion for God’s people and Kingdom is blatant.  I find recognizing (really recognizing, not just knowing about) that place of healthy work/life balance and staying there is really tough. That became painfully clear during my self-evaluations during my recent CREDO experience.

I just finished watching a video from 60-Minutes on the Millennial generation and their life/work habits and attitudes, entitled, “The Millennials Are Coming.” From this video piece, it could be argued that the whole generation (in the aggregate, of course) has developed a work/life blurring/blending lifestyle.  I wonder what the percentage might be among the whole population of those who are actually able to do this sort of thing?  Consider, also, that this video what shot before the economic downturn.  I wonder what might be said, now?  Extended adolescents and moving back home with the parents may only be compounded.

But, I want to pick up on this idea of life/work blurring and blending.  I’m wondering how this might transfer over to our efforts in finding new ways of translating the enduring Faith to emerging generations and the emerging culture.  The concept of blurring life and faith – one’s everyday life experiences with the reality of one’s faith/religious life – might be something to consider and expand. If this kind of concept caught on, there might be fewer attempts to compartmentalize one’s life, thus alienating huge parts of one’s life – actions, thoughts, and beliefs – from what goes on any given “Sunday morning.” The reality of the Life in Christ, the ability to live out as fully as possible Christ with us, should reflect a complete blending and blurring of life/faith.

If the trend of life-work blurring and blending is the new norm, will it be easier to convey the life-faith blurring and blending that really is a better understanding of the Christian life?  After all, such passion certainly is a descriptive of those whose lives reflect the image of God in profound ways.  To be the imago Dei, how could there not be a blurring and blending of life, work, faith, play, relationships, and all else that we encounter?

The CBS, 60-Minutes video from 2007:

Our Anglican troubles… continued

Posted on by

Every now and then I catch up on what is going on with the controversies within the Anglican Communion among the bloggers who are most prolific. Mark Harris (Preludium), a priest in Delaware and member of the Episcopal Church (TEC) Executive Council and Kendall Harmon (Titusonenine), the Canon Theologian for the Diocese of South Carolina, are two of these.  Over the past couple of years, and despite my respect for much of what he has written in the past, Harris has become more typically Baby Boomer-ish (those who believe they are given an unique charge to remake the world in their own image and bring in the age of Aquarius by the dismantling all that came before them) and particularly stereotypically American (those who expect their will to be done around the world simply because we are Americans, so smart, so progressive, and so right).  After all, we just want what is best for the world and its people, and we know exactly how everyone needs to act and what they need to believe.

All these machinations we are hearing from the leadership of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. concerning steps being taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) and the governing structures of the Anglican Communion because we snub our nose and refuse to abide by a couple requests made of us by those bodies, increasingly smacks of people who are used to getting their way, but no longer can.

Now, honestly, I have to admit that abiding by these two requests will impact my life, but only minimally. What I have to acknowledge is that I don’t always get my way, I don’t have a “right” to anything within the Church or the Body of Christ, and that I consider myself to be part of a Church that is Catholic – all of these things cause me to recognize, acknowledge, and abide by things I don’t like, think is fair, or consider to be right. It isn’t all about me or my group.  By saying that, I do not even consider that I stop advocating for myself, my group, what I think to be God’s will, what I believe to be right for the good order, safety, and benefit of all, and an advocate for those who are terribly abused by other Anglicans around the world and demand that they stop their abuse.

Soon, “imperialist” America will have to deal with the rest of the world standing up to us. How will we as a people and as a nation act when this really starts to happen in earnest? Will we join the rest of the world as equal partners or… will we continue to act like imperialists and attempt to force our will on the world or… will we retreat into isolationism?

The Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church are a foreshadowing of all this and how Americans will probably act.

So many of our reactions in TEC (at least among many of its leadership) smacks of an “imperialist” Episcopal Church that generally got its way within Anglicanism (because we were Americans and we had the money), but now has to deal with foreign people standing up to us and saying, “our views count and we aren’t going to let you get away with this anymore.” 

Now, we may absolutely disagree with them and actually may be absolutely right – but we are still being stood up to.  We don’t like it, so we laughingly do things like accuse the ABC of acting like a colonial authority when he, completely within his right, “interferes” in TEC, which claims to be an Anglican province by definition in communion with him. We just can’t stand being stood up to.

How are we going to act, now?

Are we going to join the rest of the Communion as equal partners and recognize that all (but a few) have requested that we don’t do a couple things and that as equal partners sometimes we have to give a little (while still being ardent advocates of our position) or… are we going to attempt to force our will one very one else (something like Spong’s attack on African bishops) or… will we simply retreat into isolationism and claim we don’t need the rest of the Communion and gloriously declare that we are our own sect?

I keep hearing all the above from our leadership, except, really, that we see ourselves as equal members of the Communion and that sometimes we don’t get our way.  Send no more money to them… we can do just as well on our own and who needs them – these are the attitudes I hear and read the most.