Pastor's Ponderings
I was recently reading a blog and other material on what are the questions that people who are outside of the church looking to answer in their lives that makes faith and the church relative to their lives. If we wish to connect with this postmodern generation, I would suggest the following questions will tap into their hearts and minds. Take a read and see the possibilities for ministry within them. (The questions and answers are from Rich Richardson, a professor at Wheaton College.)
Questions of Power and Motive. Today those outside of the church see the church as simply using logic to gain power. Postmodern people have redefined truth as “whatever rings true to your experience, whatever feels real to you.” There is no grand story that inspires people. Any attempt to claim that one has the truth for everybody is heard as an arrogant attempt at domination and control.
Questions of Identity. Who am I? Who will I listen to for help in developing my identity and sense of self? How can you Christian think you can tell other people who they are? Who do you think you are to invalidate my sense of self and identity and my group’s definition of who we are?
Questions of Pain and Suffering. Why do I hurt? Why did my family break apart? Why is there so much hatred and violence in the world? People are crying out not so much for philosophical answers as for a way to give meaning and purpose to personal and corporate suffering.
Questions of Character, Trust, and Attractiveness. Why should I trust you? Look at what believers have done: racism, sexism, homophobia, the Crusades, religious wars. Intol-erance and narrow hate seem to mark your institutions. Your character is no better than the character of society you live in.
Questions of Love and Meaning. How can you reject certain lifestyles? How can you say you love people when you reject who they are, how they define their very identity? How can you question living together when people love each other? How can you be rule-oriented in your ethics when the situation has to determine what is really loving?
Questions of Interpretation. Isn’t the way you see the world completely dependent on your community and place of birth? Can’t you interpret Scriptures any way you want, and haven’t you? I don’t care about the Bible’s reliability. I am concerned about its integrity and moral value. After all, it was written by patriarchal, ethnocentric people.
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Questions of Relevance and Relativism. Does your belief change lives? Does prayer really make a different? Does your religion help you with your pain? If it works for you, why should it work for me? What does it matter what you believe as long as it works and helps you? The question of the uniqueness of Christ is not primarily philosophical as it is utilitarian. Don’t all religions help people equally? If a religion works and feels real to a person, then it is true for that person. People are not looking for theological com-parisons, but for attractiveness and relevance.
Questions of Impact. Does your religion help society? Does it help me, whether I’m in your group or not? Or are you just another self-serving group?
Those are the questions, the reason they are asking the questions, and now it is up to us to give life giving answers to those questions that makes ministry possible to them.
Pondering the Questions and the Concerns!
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