One word: Millennials.
In the accounts I've received about what was said and done at ERC Conference in 2017, I picked up this sense of the tone or general message:
A key leadership reasoning for why the Conference needs another New Strategic Plan came from a (sudden?) awareness that the Conference has failed to reach people of the generation who are now young adults. And, now, we need to change.
Practically--PRAGMATICALLY--those things are true. Those reasons are far from the best reasons for change and would not come to the minds of Kingdom people who actually love the LORD with all their hearts.
(The first and only legitimate reason to make radical change, from the perspective of people who love God is that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing the ERC. We are out of relationship with Him.)
Yet, from the perspective of people who practice Ecclesiolatry, i.e., love of the church not of the Lord of the church, awareness that we have not reached a generation is powerful motivation for change.
So, from the ERC hierarchs' perspective, even, the ERC should hire me.
What I say next, will sound self-righteous, though I don't mean it that way: I don't care about having followers. I want to follow.
By that I mean that, from a theological perspective, I reject the idea of leadership. In a kingdom there is only one leader: the King. I don't want to lead. I'm happy to be a follower of the King.
But, the ERC hierarchs do want to be leaders. They want to be followed. Under the current new New Strategic Plan, they even have a Leadership Commission.
And, the generation who are now young adults, by the admission of the ERC hierarchs, have rejected our hierarchs' leadership.
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What amazes me about what I think is how relevant it seems to be. People of my generation, in the CGGC anyway, hate it. They attack me for it.
But, the people of the generation who are now young adults...
...MILLENNIALS...
...listen to what I say and read what I write...
...and seem to think it makes sense in their lives.
The things I love and value align with the desires and values of many people who follow Jesus and are 30 or 40 years younger than I am...
...and, we also despise many of the same things.
I've said before that the ERC should hire me because I've been right about...and the mountaintoppers have been wrong about...all the fiascoed plans and schemes of recent years that have been presented, by current staff and leaders, to the Conference as a sure-fire hope for a bright future.
A second reason that the ERC should hire me is that I, as I already am, already connect with the same millennials the mountaintoppers have lost and now hope to win back.
Dr. Richardson wants to be the guy who leads the new New Strategic Plan but to do that...and succeed by reaching millennials...he will have to completely, totally and in every way, reinvent himself.
I can't see how you can make a Dr. Richardson who can reach millennials out of the Dr. Richardson who's been leading the ERC in the losing of millennials for the last decade. Millennials despise what Dr. Richardson has given the last ten years of his life to create.
Millennials groove on authenticity...
...And, that's precisely where Dr. Richardson is cooked.
No matter how polished a Dr. Richardson 2.0 may be, millennials will see that for what it is at a glance.
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Now, the 90Something ladies who live in the home where my parents reside would eat Dr. Richardson up. If he'd show up wearing that cross on the chain around his neck and smile his gentle, grandson smile, they'd follow him to heaven.
But, their granddaughters?...grandsons?...great-grandchildren...and their families?
Nah.
No. No. No. No. No.
It will, it CAN, never happen.
If the ERC is going to reach millennials, it will be through someone who reaches millennials...
...and does it with authenticity.
I don't have to reinvent anything to reach millennials.
For reasons of practicality,
The ERC should hire me.
But when have you ever known "organized religion" to do the right thing, Pastor Bill? It's not how they operate and it's not what they're about. Yes, they should hire you, but won't, and precisely for the reasons you gave that they SHOULD. A guy like that doesn't fit in with their plan. No, I think that if you really, truly, and deeply want to reach the many millennials who have seen the great worth of your ministry, I think you should carry on with YOUR ministry. Never mind having to try and make it fit into some other organization's narrow world view of what churches and ministries should be. You're doing fine, and a world of good, on your own, brother. Please keep up the good work. The world needs more like you.
ReplyDeleteMatt,
DeleteAs you know, I love the ministry I have. Being a parish priest never brought me joy. Now, I enjoy every day, though I'm exhausted much of the time.
Several years ago I began to challenge the hierarchs in my small part of the institution to lead a "Ninevite" revival. In the Book of Jonah, Jonah showed up on the streets of Nineveh announcing its doom from the Lord but the King of Nineveh put on sackcloth and ordered the entire city to put on sackcloth and to fast in the hope that the Lord would show mercy.
The ERC should hire me, and it will if it's genuinely serious about changing to make its message and its ways relevant to the people under 40 it has lost.
But, so far, its plan is to tweak its outdated, tradition-bound ways.
As I've said, as it stands now, that plan will fail.