Brian McLaren (photo by Britt Bradley)
By Lisa Diehl, Kansas Area communications director
While United Methodists in Kansas and Nebraska face significant structural change, Brian McLaren, keynote speaker for the Joint Called Clergy Session, said clergy need to understand “it’s not their fault.”
“We might have to cope with change, but we don’t need to blame ourselves for it,” McLaren told the 800 clergy gathered at the Topeka Ramada Convention Center, on Jan. 17.
Like a dramatic weather event, a hurricane of change is swirling around us, said McLaren. He shared a story of seismic change when a bridge in Honduras was left spanning a sea of silt when Hurricane Mitch re-routed the river away from the bridge. In contrast, kind of change most of us struggle with is normal change, the kind that’s like erosion. It happens slowly, steadily.
“A lot of us are perfectly prepared to answer the questions people were seeking answers to in the 1960s and 70s. We want to re-route the river to get back to the questions we know how to answer,” McLaren said.
“People have questions. Our faith doesn’t make sense to them yet. We have to listen to their questions, understand their questions, and keep upgrading and updating your ability to answer these questions. Their questions aren’t about answers, they’re about hope, he said.
McLaren gave a brief history of humanity and how it was changed and shaped by significant scientific discoveries and philosophical changes. The inventions of writing, gunpowder, the printing press, motorized vehicles, computers and cell phones have all impacted humanity. Learning the earth was round and the existence of other planets in the solar system all changed the way we think of the world around us. As technology has advanced, change has accelerated.
“We live in a time of momentous change,” McLaren said. “To be a church leader in Kansas and Nebraska is to live in three worlds at one time. In your churches, you have grandma and grandpa, who are likely pre-modern or non-modern people. They value storytelling and face-to-face conversation. You have their kids whose lives are built around television and the movie screen. They like a good show.”
And in addition to those two worlds, you also have their children, who are firmly post-modern.
“You didn’t sign up to live in three worlds, but you do. Your challenge is how to be agents of Jesus Christ in these three very, very different worlds. This is not for sissies. This is not a Sunday school picnic,” McLaren said.
We are negotiating this move from an old paradigm to something yet to be defined, he said. In the early stages of transition, one side spends a lot of time criticizing the old paradigm and the other side keeps defending it. In the later stages of transition, instead of criticizing the old paradigm, they start trying to imagine and build a new paradigm.
“The old can’t be criticized because it’s still doing most of the work,” McLaren said. “But if there’s a future in the church for our children and grandchildren, it will be in the new paradigm.”
McLaren said one of the most important things we can do as church leaders is find talent scouts for those who are younger, give them support and guidance and ask them what they think.
“All of our denominations have developed legal hazing practices that allow in only those who are very like us,” McLaren said. “Change comes in from the outside. Cross-pollination between denominations brings fresh practices.”
So what’s next?
“If you ask what’s going to happen, your assumption is that you have no power except to creatively adjust,” he said. “A far better question is what needs to happen? How can we join God in what needs to happen? The question is not how do we adjust, but how do we participate?”
McLaren took questions from audience on topics ranging from what resources the church has to facilitate change to what measurements the church should be taking.
McLaren said in our efforts to make things as easy as possible on ourselves and our fear of changing too much and lose our orthodoxy, the practical danger is that we won’t change enough.
“The greater fear is that we will stay in boxes that are too small,” McLaren said.
Methodists are in a great position because of the Wesley quadrilateral that combines scriptures with experience, reason and tradition. Methodists recognize that you can’t just solve every problem by quoting the Bible and telling people to shut up.
“It’s a great advantage and provides some room to move that some of our other protestant brothers and sisters don’t have,” McLaren said.
When asked about if the church should be taking measurements and what those measurements should be, McLaren said measurements are important as long as we measure the right things with the right expectations.
He said he would like to see the church count experimental forms of outreach and discipleship in addition to the traditional measures of worship attendance.
“We should not only count the ones that succeed. If we learn something from it, we have succeeded,” McLaren said. “One of the things that’s very hard to count is Christ-likeness. I don’t know how you do it. It can’t easily be counted, but it ought to be noticed.”
McLaren also addressed the role of technology in the church. He said it is important for the church not to make the same mistake as the Post Office and deny that these new forms of communication will have an impact on the way church happens.
Technology should not completely replace human interactions, but it should reinforce what we do when we get together.
There are many reasons to compare the changes in our world to a tsunami. We are being asked to draw upon capacities that haven’t been drawn out in us before, McLaren said.
“That’s why we have hope in the face of change. Amen,” he said.
