"God is at work in the world and calling our church to the threshold of something new."

I think we are on the threshold of making a quantum leap from being created to being creator.

If "God" is the creative power or force of the universe, then this force has created us in its image, as a creative species, and wants us to be creative. So far, conventional church has been rather authoritarian, imitative, and uncreative. Now we must take the leap from authoritativeness to creativeness, from being imitative to being creative.

This, of course, is a natural progression. In the development of the individual, we progress from being imitative babies and children to being freely creative adults. Institutions, like the church, likewise progress from being authoritative and imitative to being freely creative. Imitativeness and authoritativeness are essential in the early development of individuals and institutions. But, once childhood is over, we can, and have to, progress from authoritarian imitativeness to free creativeness. It is "childhood's end," for us and for our church.

To connect with the creative power of the universe, through meditation, prayer, or contemplation, will help us become responsible creators and boldly create new realities and truths.

LOL @ SnP.

That's some fine apologetics there, Lou.

I think that we, the UCC, have to become less dogmatically, doctrinally or partisan religious, and become more spiritual in a general sense, embracing the latest insights of science-based spiritual philosophy.

Traditional religious metaphors are apporopriate—as metaphors—but to take those metaphors literally, and derive absolutist doctrines or dogmas from them, ought to be passé in a modern spiritual organization.

I am one of 15 Group Leaders for the conversation process.  Each of us is recruiting 15 Facilitators.  Each facilitator will attend a training session along with several other faciliators; gather a group from their church to have a conversation with another facilitator; have a conversation with that facilitator or another facilitator who will have gathered a similar group from their church for the conversation; and then have similar conversations with 9 other congregations.  All or most of the covnersations will be online and use a combination of Adobe Connect using a web camera and the telephone.  The goal is to have 2200 conversations completed by the end of June.  The conversations are supposed to take about 1.5 hours.  Mine last night was a bit over 2 so I am working on refining my self-discipline.  The conversation was very interesting and encouraging.     If you are interested in being a facilitator (I am not sure if they still need some group leaders), please contact Brian Mitchell-Walker bmw@bemindfullywell.com.  I am looking for faciliators in Alberta, BC or Saskatchewan.  jimkenney12@gmail.com.

That's a lot of conversation and effort for something that will be boiled down to "We will strive to be Christ-centred in our approach to X," isn't it?*

What are the problems of the UCCan? I've only got a couple of minutes, so let's solve this quickly.

Well, you have an aging and declining membership, because you struggle to retain your own children as they become adults and you're not attracting new immigrants in the same numbers as other churches are. You also have aging structures and increased maintenance and utility costs. As a result of the above reasons, you're closing churches (like the one nearest to me next month) and rarely opening new ones. You struggle to attract new ministers, and you struggle to pay the ones you have for the first reason above. Finally, no one in Canada outside of your own denomination really cares what your moderator says, unlike in your heyday.

I'm sure there are more things, but I think those are the biggies.

To me, the answer starts and ends with young people. You need them waaaaay more than they need you. Why aren't you an attractive group to be associated with? Why don't they want to come? How could you change their minds, and maybe even get some of their friends to join them?

First...would any kid in grade 10 want to say they are a member of the United Church of Canada? What have you guys done that would make a young person proud to be associated with you?

The one missed opportunity that springs to mind, is when Catholic high school kids were fighting to have GSAs. How cool would it have been for a high school kid in the public system to let his or her Catholic friends know that his church publicly supported them? Could they say that? No, because you guys were busy trying to figure out which almost non-existent products from the West Bank you were not to buy.

And say you piss off Catholics in the process? You won't be pissing off the Catholics, you'll be pissing off the priests and bishops. Canadian Catholics are, by and large, pretty together people. Their leadership on the other hand, are populated with a lot of dogmatic idiots. Even Catholics know that. Besides, I can think of few more yawn-worthy things than enraging a leadership with a history of enabling child rapists.

So, next time you have the opportunity to do the right thing and give your kids who haven't yet left a chance to brag that they belong to the UCCan (at least when they attend twice a year), DO IT. Don't let the next opportunity pass you by.

Second...and I'm gonna get a few eye rolls for this...a lot of them don't much believe any more. Or at least, they don't think Jesus is taking attendance. Others are simply embarrassed that you still have imaginary friends. You're not going to get those ones back with a Christ-centred approach.*

So, tone down the God talk. Make it optional. Like, reaaalllly optional. Mix it up. You're good at finding the moral bits of the bible and ignoring the rest. Import the moral bits from Islam, Hinduism, native American mythology, and other mythologies or other works of classic fiction. Discuss those. Sure, find commonalities and differences with Christianity, but if you just return to Jesus and say that way is better than all the rest, then you have to give reasons...to an educated audience. You'll lose.

And go even further. Try to put on TED-style talks once in a while on Sundays. People love that stuff. Even young people. Scratch that - especially young people. Bring in artists, politicians, musicians, businesspeople...anyone interesting. Make church more of a intellectual smorgasbord. Engage with Q and As. Make it interesting and challenging and fun.

Third, repackage it and make it less churchy...less stuffy and musty. Here's a free slogan: More United, Less Church. Engage people, not imaginary deities. Break free from having to relate every single idea back to the tenuous and idiotic concept of a guy who was killed for your benefit.

All of this, I realize, is a massive stretch. Any one of those changes could result in the immediate loss of many established church members. One way to look at it, is you can either make some massive changes to make what you do engaging and relevant and lose longtime members in the process, or you can simply keep doing what you're doing (in a more Christ-centred* way, of course) and wait for them to die instead. Then, you can meet in somebody's basement for a few years until it's all gone.

I write the above in all seriousness (aside from my typical wisecracks), because I don't hate the UCCan. You guys are in the unique position of being the least-insane Christian denomination in Canada, but you refuse to do anything useful with it. Gretta is the closest thing you have to a savior, and a lot of you seem to want her crucified (pause for a moment if you have to). You have the infrastructure and the people to do something cool.

* If the results of these "Comprehensive Review Conversations" include the words "Christ-centred approach" or similar, you guys owe me one Internet.

very excellently written, chansen :3

and i think its g_od for the UCC to get some 'outsider' perceptions -- those on the outside of the UCC can see things that those inside the UCC are blind to

Thanks. Care to wager whether it will be ignored, dismissed, or deleted? Aaron has been paying close attention to the bleeding hearts of late, and I've saved a copy locally, so you know where my money is.

Hi chansen,

Respectfully suggest that any Church not striving to be Christ centered is not striving to be Church.

That aside "Christ-centered" is just as ambiguous and open to interpretation as is our understanding of Christ.  Which represents a fundamental problem in communication for our denomination.  The more ambiguous the definition the harder it is to arrive at any concrete determination.  It is like trying to use fog as an example of ice.

As a cursory glance at WonderCafe.ca shows.  Of the many different forms of Christian and Christianity presented few would suggest that they are not Christ centered and yet there is quite a bit of disparity when all of that is taken into account.  While not every slant on Christianity presented at WonderCafe.ca is held by members of the UCCAN the diversity of views is reflective of the denomination as a whole.

Bull's eye.  That, more than anything else sums up the problem facing our denomination (and it is not our problem alone).

More bull's eye.

While I respect that the final question is very pointed I am also aware of our denominational defensiveness which will use the question as a launch pad for another brazen display of back-patting.

Back-patting is the UCCAN's favourite form of denial.

I appreciate the point.  It has inherent structural problems which are not appreciated outside of the denomination (heck, they aren't necessarily understood or appreciated within the denomination).

Certain denominations can move very quickly on social positions because they to not contain, within their ecclesial bounds the same broadness of our denomination.  That allows them to operate with a higher authoritarian slant.  The UCCAN being more concilliar has deliberate limits placed upon our authority structures.  Which means that when we are reacting to social issues we are always arriving late to the party with an opinion a majority will support.

The real fix to that is to be less reactive and more proactive.

Perhaps not.  Of course Christ-centered doesn't mean we have to appear unbalanced. In Natural Church Development we talk about the two perils of any Church being institutionalism (which has us by the throat in our concilliar form of governance--because all decisions have to be made by a council at some level the fastest the Church can move is with the speed of consensus (on a good day that might be as fast as a snail on ice, going downhill).  The other peril (which is creeping into the UCCAN is spiritualism (which is reactionary to institutionalism and best demonstrated by the spiritual but not religious crowd).  It is more of the fog as example of ice crowd.

I agree with this and am in the process of working on a proposal for our local congregation.  So yes, I will be dealing with at least one council so don't expect many glowing reports on how quickly we are progressing.

We do have other projects in the works which are departures from the norm (as much as congregations talk about wanting to do something different--actually finding support to do something different is like alchemy--a great idea that is hard to pull off).

That simply is a redefinition of what churchy means.  Doing what you describe would be the new churchy.  I obviously don't agree with every facet of your position but then I don't agree that every facet you present as "church" is what we do or are about.

That is of course the fear and it is also a rather black and white approach to the issue.  There is no real reason why any congregation could not implement all that you suggest and not still keep a traditional service for those who are nourished by it.

The common reasons for not providing more buffet is time and energy.  That being the case if you only have one item on the menu it better be the best quality item of that kind for miles around and, if that was the case, we wouldn't have problems with declining membership.

No deal.

My concern, at present is that the review is going to focus primarily on governance and polity issues (which are the biggest beefs inside the Church and of zero import to anyone outside of the Church).  That being the case, the resulting changes would simply result in a Church more comfortable for us to decline in.

There will be requisite back-patting new processes and even if things inside change for the better most congregations will sit with their doors open wondering why nobody walks in.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I agree.

When it comes to examining the flaws of an organization, then insiders often are poorly qualified to recognise these flaws, especially if some of these very flaws are unquestioning belief in doctrines, and insiders have been indoctrinated to beleive unquestioningly in those doctrines.

Hardly anyone questions the outstanding work the UCC has done and is doing in the field of applied humanism. But if its cosmology is stuck in the first century, and its entire belief-system is based on first century philosophy, then the organization loses credibility, despite its laudable humanistic efforts.

To put it bluntly, literalized mythological cosmology is regarded as absurdity by the secular majority, who adhere to scientific cosmology. The problem of the UCC and other Christian denominations is that they are a 21st century organization stuck in 1st century philosophy.

There is a lot of catching up to do: 2,000 years of catching up! And, as I said, there is a lot of resistance to catching up within the organization.

Time for some outside input!

Many excellent points Chansen.  Thank you.  The first conversation in which I participated had some members of a congregation suggesting the TED talk kind of event.  The challenge is to develop effective communication tools to reach the desired audience.

Not an "event" - make it in lieu of Sunday service. Then, you've got a built-in audience who were planning to be there at that time anyway. Any other time, and it won't work the same. Get an athelete or a musician to talk about something fun or interesting. Advertise it in the local papers, and not in the religion section, because young people skip over that because it's all bake sales and knitting groups.

Here's your opportunity: You have an existing infrastructure of buildings and staff and volunteers across Canada. Who else has that, besides corporations and government? What can you do better than those groups?

"God is at work in the world and calling our church to the threshold of something new."

The word "work" may mislead us. What we meet in the word of god is presence and consequent activity. Wind blows, leaves rustle and apples fall. Where god is present god actions follow.

These actions, for those of us professing the way revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, are not obscure or hidden. They are in plain sight and within the range of human capacity. Simply reach out with your available means to alleviate the estate of those about you without available means.

Freely share your courage with the discouraged. Share your bread and wine, the basic stuff of daily living, with those who have no bread or wine. No program is required, no external motivation or constraint.

The deeds of neighbour love manifest the spirit that comes from god. It matters not who does these deeds,. In the story, passed from generation through generation, Jesus is asked to make plain his authority.

Jesus points to the included excluded, the liberated captives, the relieved oppressed, the seeing blind, the hearing deaf, the walking lame and the living dead. He has read Isaiah and taken to heart the divine imperative; declaring that imperative at his first public proclamation.

Be clear. I hold the scripture to be words, sentances, paragraphs and pages. Nothing more..... nor less! With Heidegger and others I understand language to be the house of being. God in a story is effective where a reader follows through on the insight the story makes possible. A child "gets" it when three little pigs build three little houses.

My read of the text and tradition has something important to say to the United Church of Canada. The story is preoccupied with the perennial and pernicious practices of those who profess religion. In particular, those who take themselves to be guardians of a religious tradition. Can we critically engage this persistent problematic? May such inquiry open to alternatives as we seek relevance in our time and place?

What do we make of the word "threshold"? Metaphorically we cross a threshold; stepping out of one place to enter another. Were the United Church of Canada to call persons to cross that threshold, enter the domain of faith, be transformed and, thereby, bear faithful public witness, notice would be taken.

Socrates offers medicine for healing. He is accused because the medicine is hard to swallow.  Jesus gets this. The religious institution of his people is wholly compromised by the "modern" spirit; the god of the age.  He shines light.... he makes things visible.

In particular, Jesus makes visible what god is doing while the Roman hegemon is in the late stages of decadence and decline. He attracts negative attention, revealing the status of those entrusted with the revelation of god.

How  long have we been enacting the flip chart liturgy? How has this process changed anything specific to our decline in relevance and our slide into insolvency?

What is on the other side of the threshold our moderator notices? Something new! Unimagined and unexpected! Surprising! Not something worked out. Something received as a gift.

"Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you."

Abraham is called on one side of a threshold. He crosses. Note this carefully. He does not devise or follow a pattern or plan. He goes out as one who is led, to a "land that I will show you."

That's the rub. We don't like where we are but we don't want to leave either.

There is good news. Folk all over are stepping over the threshold. Our friend Arminius provides a fine example. There are many more present in this place who know well what is called for and at what cost. There are many more yet present in places beyond our own.

We have been living in the Basis of Union for a long time. It promised much but has not delivered on that promise. We may now take it as a diversion and a distraction. A legalism that eats our time, talent and treasure. Persistence in this way is persistence in folly. If there were no other way I could not say so. It is the beckoning of that other way, which lies just across the threshold, which compells me to be plain as I am able.

*blinks*

I take it back. You guys are screwed.

*smiles*

Good to meet you. Fortuitous, so to speak.

Cheers

Jim,

you might also want to take a look at Jonah Berger's book Viral's Secret Formula

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonah-berger/virals-secret-formula_b_30526...

more tools to help you save your church...

Chansen, great ideas! Just one thing though, it absolutely must be Christ centred......that makes it a wee bit harder. 

"Christ-centred" is just a meaningless religious buzzphrase I see thrown around. It's leveraging a new paradigm to think outside the box. I'm just predicting it will be part of any result of these "Comprehensive Review Conversations" (tm).

I would prefer Jesus-centered--using his teaching and actions as guides.  Inannawhimsey, thank you for the link.  Much to think about.

I'm not into Pauline Christianity, either, and prefer "Jesus-centered" myself.

Now to something else. Some of you may be aware of what St. Paul United in Kelowna did. They were, like most other congregations, plagued by aging and declining membership and increasing expenses. But, rather than selling their church property to developers, they decided to develop it themselves. They'll turn their sanctuary into a theatre, renting it out for theater functions but also retaining it for their own sanctuary use. The rest of their church property will be stores downstairs and condos upstairs, and the whole development will be named "Sanctuary" Neat, eh?

Jesus is an agent of change. He does things in unexpected, and mostly unwelcome ways; from the institutional point of view.

One day Jesus is in a house teaching an alternative to the dominant social consciousness. The house is full of curious folk. There are curious folk gathered round outside. Something is happening in the house. That something has been going on for a while and the general population is buzzing about the difference manifest in the word and deed of Jesus. His name is going viral, following the marketing insight  noted above.

There is a flash point in the story. It occurs as Jesus addresses the predicament of a person stripped of volition. He forgives the person's sin. This is a direct contradiction of institutional norms and standards. Forgiveness of sin requires resort to the temple priesthood, A bit like a lay person breaking bread and passing a cup in the local community. It is not allowed by those who keep and are kept by the instititution.

The incident goes viral. From village to village the story is told. The general population is amazed by Jesus. A minority, which happens to hold all the high cards in the game of power, is annoyed and resentful. They act to silence the word and repress the deed manifest in the uncredentialled Jesus. This does nothing to diminish the reputation of Jesus. It exponentially amplifies the virility of the story.

What might the United Church do to set such a pattern in motion? It could start by recognizing that conformity is counter indicated. It would encourage and support creative initiative. It would acknowledge that its habitual patterns are moribund and step out of them; into the adventure of free, responsible, creative and courageous expression of personal and communal determination to follow in the way of Jesus.

We do well in being kind and candid; which we may practice in all times and places.

What motivates the initiative now in view?

The recovery of lost market share?

Manifestation of God's presence in human experience? 

Can both be done?

chansen, your vision matches mine....and my friends who have quit going to church.

the point about the opportunity missed (and that continue to be missed) is well made.

sadly, it seems to often drop on deaf ears.

I've noticed.

*chuckle*

Why would you laugh? You come up with the sort of inaccessible drivel that puts young people to sleep. It may work for you, but it's hardly a formula for reaching new people.

A mere chuckle, nothing remotely resembling a laugh. Though we may find our way to laughter as we go at it for a bit.

Is there any one or more of the three points below that does not conform to the advice you generously offer above?

"...conformity is counter indicated..."

"...encourage and support creative initiative..."

"...acknowledge that (UCC) habitual patterns are moribund and step out of them..."

I assume the "drivel" descriptor has to do with the narrative sequence featuring a rabbi by the name of Jesus?

Fella was havin trouble on the farm. Rooster was a dud. Fertility low in all stock. Future seemed sparse. Fella meets fella on the road. Tells his story. Fella met says he knows someone with a remarkable rooster. Soon the fella is home with what has been sold him as a remarkable rooster.

The evidence starts showing up quick. Hens are laying. Like nothing in memory. Not just the hens. The Cows, the sheep the goats. The whole acerage is flowering with fertility. All well and good.

The fella is concerned for the welfare of the Rooster. The pace is gonna be the end of you. No heed paid. Rooster carries on. Prosperity abounds.

One day. Fella looks up. Sees buzzards circling. Jumps to conclusion. Runs out to field. There is Rooster prone and still on the ground. Fella runs up. Rooster whispers: "Get away. Can't you see I'm seducing the buzzards."

Why did Rumi tell such tales? They were great told in a circle round a fire. Flickering shadows and quickened imaginations. Insight, like sparks from the fire, leaping and landing; now here, now there.

Stories give us relief from the hardship of the place and the oppression of the state. They give us insight and they give us courage.

I value the story about Jesus. As I value the story about Socrates, Gautama and Lao Tzu In all of these stories we see the tension of power abused  and the good pursued.

I value stories told by Hesse, Doestoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoi. I value insights shared by Buber, Kierkegaard, Socrates and the Hebrew prophets.

I love the meta-story.

I do not expect any to agree with my evaluation. In deed, it is the contrarians met along the way who offer rich opportunity for noticing and correcting my inherited assumptions and prejudices.

A wee ramble, in good humour.

GeoFee,

i look forward to your future TEDx talk :3

George, I called it "drivel" because it seems to be written more for the benefit of yourself and people like you, than the people you need to attract. I was actually trying to be serious, and I don't see anyone else here actually trying to tackle the subject at hand.

You guys seem to want to survive this nosedive, but you don't want to change. Good luck with that.

In our congregation we are growing and getting new young members by being more "Christ centered" not less.

By bringing the living Christ into lives.

Without Christ we are a simply a club that sings together on Sunday mornings in my opinion

.

We have ramped up our bible study opportunities with minister led and member led events.

.
Book/author talks some evenings, bible studies downtown at a breakfast place at 6 am for the early office worker group, again at 10 for the ones who are free, a lunch time one that gets high school students, evening groups, marriage groups, mom tot drop ins, a contemplative prayer group , a wed evening casual service for the ones who leave on weekends to cottages....

.
W are getting previous non Christians coming to hear the good news of Jesus.
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By not being afraid of who we are and what we believe in.

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Not by pretending we can be a watered Christianity to try to appeal to those who aren't Christians.

Might not work for everyone but we get a new group of members with every class,

Yes, chansen, there is an unwillingness, or perhaps inability, in the UCC and other Christian denominations, to state universal moral values or timeless spiritual truths in non-Christian terms and metaphors.

But this is not surprising in a religion that is defined by unquestioning belief in doctrine. I think the UCC needs to "undoctrinate" itself.

Let's face it, modern society is largely secular. The cosmology that captures popular imagination is no longer Judeo/Christian mythology but science-based cosmology. And science-based cosmology certainly is spiritual enough to derive compelling spiritual explanations and metaphors.

Mythology, when taken literally, becomes absurdity. Christian denominations sell absurdities and wonder why no-one is buying.

i think sometimes we just get tired of sharing the information and getting the same old arguments back.......

chansen, thanks for the time you spent in your answer

Pinga, the "same old arguments" pretty much destroy the claims of Christianity. If we're beating Christianity with these arguments, why is it us atheists who need new arguments? Shouldn't that be the other way around?

Hi chansen...

Me, on the inside:   "That's the rub. We don't like where we are but we don't want to leave either."

You, on the outside:   "You guys seem to want to survive this nosedive, but you don't want to change."

Are we not saying the same thing?

There is a difference between us to be sure.

I propose remedy through a return to the name of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ; understanding that the ways and means of the United Church have been wholly accommodated to patterns and processes that are antithetical to that name.

You propose remedy through abandoning the name of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, suggesting that holding to this name prohibits relevance in the emergent milieu and that unreserved accommodation offers the only way forward.

I respect your perspective and value your insight, though I disagree with your premise.

George

.

GeoFee, That was very well put. Thank you. 

Are you saying you can out-Jesus the Baptists? The Presbyterians? Everybody? Because they're losing their kids, too. 

What you're doing isn't working, and what they're doing isn't working. Your kids aren't believing in the same numbers they used to. The "return to the name of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ" line has been trotted out so many times, like it's some magic pill. There is no pill, and that is no plan. It's meaningless verbage. It's fluff. It makes people like RAN applaud....and that's about it. It assumes that the "gospel of Jesus Christ" has never been tried in a church before.

I'm proposing a remedy that has been mostly untried, and is based in what thinking young people find intriguing. I'm proposing something that breaks up to monotony of the Sunday sermon. I'm proposing things that would allow people to come to church without feeling like they have to sign on to a story they find ludicrous. I'm proposing things that would make young people proud to stand with a church that has their back.

Yeah, you'll have to accommodate. You'll have to accommodate for the fact that Christianity is baseless and people aren't as gullible as they used to be.

I have to disagree with you here Chansen. We have recently witnessed the unrest and discontent with many young people across North America and further. The Occupy Movement, Idle No More and the unrest in places like Syria are all indications that Jesus' Gospel of God's Kingdom needs to be heard. IMO most churches just aren't comfortable anymore stepping in to these situations by declaring that their message is a Godly one. It's far easier joining in with the mainstream rhetoric that allows one to join the protests in mutual displeasure than declare the authoritive message of God/Jesus, who actually has laid the groundwork that declares the Plan for a Kingdom that will lead us all out of the self serving Empires that are being built. We are so locked into a system that operates in greed and regards populations as just a piece of a cog that moves a giant machine in order for a few to become very rich. Poverty still prevails on this planet  Even in first world countries we have a poverty in spirit. Once we get past the point that we can now afford most things in Walmart and we have been "bought", there remains an unsettled realization that we have contributed to the "undoing" of a society that is even further from the Kingdom that Jesus envisioned for us all.

To me, what we have done by using church as a nice little gathering place and worshipping "Jesus" instead of holding onto his message, is that we have actually joined and agreed with an "Empire" that will dehumanize our young people and dull the spirit of freedom and contentment.

God's Kingdom encourages us to be on the look out for those who will exploit our resources, our freedoms, and our love for one another.

This is a message that should not be hidden or unsupported but preached from rooftops and declared openly. Instead we have become timid as churches and apologetic for even raising the name of God or Jesus in a secular crowd. We have become ashamed of who it is that will lead our young people out of oppression.

Chansen, the same old arguments was the negative voices / responses to change

ROFLMAO!  Such an appropriate response...

Sorry, Pinga. Sometimes it feels like I'm ever on the defensive here.

I am no stranger to what young people find intriguing. I post the videos below, which I have posted before in other contexts, to show the kind of persons who find me intriguing and credible. They know who I am and what I hope to accomplish in the name which you refuse. They welcome and respect my insight and encouragements. I am with them in their refusal of institutional religion and their critical engagement of the corporate state.

I have no interest in having the folk with whom I stand in soldarity seek the backing of the church. I would much rather have the church come out into the commons and give themselves to that creative resistance which makes available remedy for that which plagues our shared human being and becoming.

The kind of resistance which we see in the exemplar Jesus, who refuses the authority of both religion and state, claiming to make present an authority written in the fabric of his being and not in some external source.

Disagreement on both points.

Christianity has a deep root in human identity and experience. I say this in full awareness of the distortion of Christianity which presents itself to the public imagination and is rightly refused by that imagination as irrelevant to the dilemma of the time.

As to people being less gullible now than in time previous, I will insist that people are as gullible now as they have ever been. Even a cursory survey of the social economy will suggest deep unconsciousness specific to the manipulation of human and non-human nature by a diversity of powers and principalities.

In case I have not been clear, I have no interest in rescuing or preserving the decadent practices of religion common in our experience. What I experience and encourage by reference to the name you refuse, is stepping out into freedom, responsibility, creativity and courage.

Let me pose a question for you. Have you ever gained an insight by hearing a story told, a song sung, a drama presented?

i do understand

*sympathetic sigh*

I enjoy the engagement. Much as I enjoyed digging for the puck in the corner boards with some burly defenseman. Working to make the pass to the crease, assisting in the making of a point.

But you're passing it to the other team.

If people find your Jesus-ness wanting, they have places to go. Jae went full-on Baptist, for example.

The UCCan has a noted history of "liberal" decisions. This topic interests me, so I did some reading about the CoC and now Cruxifusion. You guys have had your own Tea Party for years, and it sounds like most of them left in the early 90's, after THAT decision. Now you want to appeal to this side again? They're mostly gone, George. There are lots of options on your right that appeal to the gullible.

And yes, people are still gullible, but the arguments against the beliefs of Christianity are more organized, more accessible, and more damaging than ever before. We're no longer living in a Christian echo chamber where everyone believes because they are supposed to believe. Even in my day, kids were supposed to believe what their parents believed. Now, even young kids will ask, "Why?" They hear the arguments against Christianity earlier. They are better equiped to be skeptics. And they aren't believing.

So, you can let them go, or try to change to meet their different needs. 

Your analysis is sound. We were born into a language world. It shaped our identity, our perceptions and our actions. Early on this language world dominated the fleld. Now that language world has an inflated currency. The more we press its claims the less it buys us in the open market of ideas. Why?

Any youth at about puberty will notice the discrepency between belief and action in the adult world. Each youth struggles to determine a trajectory of duplicity, learning to play the adult game to win adult approval and societal benediction, or a trajectory of integrity, refusing the adult game and "failing" to earn adult approval and societal benediction.

I can go on about this paradigm. You already know it as well or better than I. That this pattern is in play is not what marks the difference between us. The difference between us consists in my admission of a transcendent referent and your refusal of the possibility.

You are the captain of your ship and I have no  desire or compulsion to have you sail by my charts. Nor do I imagine you would have me abandon my own sense of direction to adopt the one you maintain. We can get on well enough by resort to values we hold in common, without requiring capitulation.

I appreciate your candor and the pointed questions you pose; with a readiness to go "a second mile", as the ancient metaphor has it.

Hi Chansen, geofee is in a different space than CoC, and possibly Cruxufusion.  geofee seeks a lived response to the Gospel. CoC was all about beliefs and what was accepteable in other people rather than what the gospel demanded of them.  There are probably dozens of "tribes" among people 14 to 30 today.  Some of the people in those tribes are looking for a place to explore their spiritual experiences while pursuing ways of seeking fairness/jusitice and seeking companions for their journey of dixcovery and action.

Waterfall, the participation of young people in Occupy and Idle No More, and other grass-roots movements is an indication of spritual/emotional strength that is emerging and looking tor ways to be expressed.  Most members of most congregations have more to learn from these young people than they have to learn from the church.

Well put.

Perhaps, though, it's a two way street. The UCC may have something practical to offer these young people, for instance

- how to construct a workable bottom up system of governance;

- how to run a community relying heavily or completely on volunteer labour;

- how to set up the most transparent possible financial books,

- organizing volunteer library systems, etc.