Category: Future

Unfolding History

Thoughts About 100 Years of Ministry in Kinston

The following column appeared in the Kinston Free Press one week after Queen Street United Methodist Church celebrated 100 years of ministry at the corner of Queen Street and Peyton Avenue in what is now downtown Kinston, North Carolina. I love being in ministry with saints and sinners of Queen Street and look forward to the challenges of another 100 years of ministry in Kinston.

Column: After 100 Years, Looking Forward or Reminiscing

This past Sunday, Queen Street United Methodist Church marked 100 years since our foremothers and forefathers walked from the corner of Caswell and Independence to the corner of Queen and Peyton to launch a new ministry.

While the move was only two blocks west and four blocks north, it represented a move in keeping with Kinston’s growth. I have been contemplating that move and remembering two heroes of scripture who made a much longer journey — Abraham and Sarah.

Abraham was called by God to leave the comfort of kin and homeland at the age of 90 and invited to “Go West” until God told him to stop. When he “arrived” at God’s spot some years later, God further promised Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars.

We have to remember that Abraham and Sarah were an ancient (Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 89) and childless couple when this promise was made. Abraham must have felt like a fool. It’s one thing to travel to literally “God only knows where”; it’s quite another to start a family at the age of 100!

The writer of Hebrews sensed that Abraham understood what it was to be a part of the larger human quest. The writer says that as Abraham traveled west he “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).

As several institutions in our town turn 100 this year, what would “looking forward to the city” look like in our time? As Kinston rebounds from watching one industry after another leave town and even get dealt the blow of losing our Kinston Indians, are we “looking forward to the city” or just reminiscing? Are we dreaming God-sized dreams of what could be or languishing in stories of what used to be?

As I get older, I find myself leaning into the future with my kids.

I choose indoor plumbing over outhouses, air-conditioning over oscillating fans, iTunes over 45s, the Internet over chain-letters, and pesky mobile phones over shared party lines.

I choose a city that looks to what can be instead of what used to be.

I choose a city where God is the builder and architect and where the citizens seek the prosperity and peace of the city as a whole.

That kind of place will prosper, and my hunch is that her descendants will be like the stars.

Despite Global Conflict, Statistics Show Violence In Steady Decline

The world may be becoming a less violent place according to recent studies. While the numbers of persons affected by violence may be large, as a percentage of population a decline is noticeable. For instance, battlefield deaths in the 20th century occurred at a rate of 60 persons for every 100,000 people (with two World Wars and its genocides). The current rate is 0.3 persons dying in battle per 100,000 people. Stepping back far enough to pay attention to the trend is difficult when the daily news brings us real stories with real blood and real violence … may this trend continue.

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it’s really on the run.

Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon.

Yet, historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful.That’s the thesis of three new books, including one by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem.

In his book, Pinker writes: “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

via World Becoming Less Violent: Despite Global Conflict, Statistics Show Violence In Steady Decline.

we always dismiss young people … even if they are onto something

It’s always unexpected.  No one predicted Tahrir Square.  No one imagined tens of thousands of young Syrians, weaponless, facing the military might of the state.  No one expected the protests in Wisconsin.  No one, myself included, imagined that young Americans, so seemingly somnolent as things went from bad to worse, would launch such a spreading movement, and — most important of all — decide not to go home. (At the last demonstration I attended in New York City in the spring, the median age was probably 55.)

The Tea Party movement has, until now, gotten the headlines for its anger, in part because the well-funded right wing poured money into the Tea Party name, but it’s an aging movement.  Whatever it does, in pure actuarial terms it’s likely to represent an ending, not a beginning. Occupy Wall Street could, on the other hand, be the beginning of something, even if no one in it knows what the future has in store or perhaps what their movement is all about — a strength of theirs, by the way, not their weakness.

via utne.com

History’s intervention is always unexpected. Something important for us to remember when we are trying to “invent” the new. Henry Blackaby taught me to discern what God may be blessing and join that rather than ask the Lord to bless what I was doing. I am not sure where Occupy Wall Street may be going AND we all need to be watching

This Easter join a spiritual adventure with Gabe Lyons and the NEXT CHRISTIANS.

Gabe Lyons begins his new book, Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America (2010), with the startling confession that several years ago that he was “embarrassed to call myself Christian” (3). He and Dave Kinneman described the source of this embarrassment in their groundbreaking book UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity (2007). Next Christians is Lyons attempt to offer a compelling vision for how the church can reform itself as it learns from the next generations of Christians. This book seeks to answer three questions that Lyons has been chewing on in subsequent years: what does mission look like in America in the twenty-first century, how should the message of the Gospel go forward, and what does it mean to be a Christian in a world disenchanted with our movement (4)?

Continue reading “This Easter join a spiritual adventure with Gabe Lyons and the NEXT CHRISTIANS.” →