what would you have done differently?

i really enjoyed meeting tom brackett earlier this year - we've become good friends in a short space of time. he works for/with the episcopal church in the USA nudging it in the direction of church planting and redevelopment. he connects with, networks and encourages new edges and leaders. he has a great piece on his blog what might you have done differently? . when he was in the UK he asked people the following question:

If you knew twenty years ago what you know today about the impact of secularization on the relationship of Culture to Church and vice versa, what might you have done differently to prepare the institution for those emerging realities, back then?

the answers come down to two dominant themes -

• we should not have let young people drift out of church (which meant we gradually lost sight of the gap between church culture and the wider culture)
• we should not have lost sight of how to nurture the prophetic voice in our midst.

so playing it back to leaders in the USA tom strongly advocates

Invite faith-filled young leaders into your communities. Listen. Try on new ideas. Experiment.

she who has ears to hear let her hear...

Comments

[becky]

when I met tom the first thing I told him was, you HAVE to get to the UK because I knew there was a synergy where God was at play. Glad this is working out.

[northern girl in the south]

Thats really interesting, a survey of hindsight! Makes you think ahead to the next 20 years. I'll check it out.Thanks

I know we are not acquainted, but I felt you might be interested in this in the Guardian (G2) this morning - I tried to email you but I can't get it to work - a guy called Douglas Rushkoff with a book out called "Life Inc: how the world became a corporation and how to take it back", about how to get back to community and local networks.

"an advocate of what he calls 'fractal activism',favouring a host of sprawling, disorganised personal protests over organised campaigns" and

"not only am I not capable of spearheading a movement, I don't believe in movements. What I'm trying to do is encourage people to take the steps they nede to take, in their communities, cities and towns"

Am gonna try and get it ordered at my library.

[Tom Brackett]

Jonny,

Rereading all this gives me images of freshly minted posh priests with digital recorders running around after grungy young people asking for their faith stories . . .

Thank you for (what do you call it?) the hat tip.

Tom