What Can We Learn From The Election
Time and again since the election I have read comments about how invested the younger generation were in the vote, how social media has been so important and most importantly of all what a principled generation this young generation are.
I find myself agreeing whole heartedly with all of the above and I fear all those comments are things the church has failed to grasp.
This generation is the most highly principled generation for a long, long time.
When we ask why this generation is not so engaged with church we need to keep these things in mind. This generation has no issue with God, their issues are with the church, a church that is failing the LGBT community, the disabled community, the poor etc.
Yes there will be those who can tell us all about food banks, credit unions etc and they are of course good things, however, this generation want to see a church that uses the gospel to ask the questions why we still have so many people who feel excluded because of disability, sexuality, poverty etc. It's fine to pull these people out of the river but this generation wants to know who is pushing them in in the first place? Not only do they want to know who is doing the pushing but they also want to see those people challenged by a church that truly lives to it's gospel imperatives.
Many times I hear the same people who ask "how do we reach such groups"? We see clearly from the election that such groups are vigorous users of social media and yet time and again we hear church leaders proudly boast "oh I don't do that Facebook and Twitter stuff".
It is time for us to live up to our principals, speak truth to power unafraid and to stop waiting for those on the margins to come to us, we need to go and live among them, before evangelism needs to come real relationships of friendship and trust, it is precisely those spaces that Jesus will occupy.
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