I was chatting to a bunch of my colleagues this morning. They had all been to a 'renewing the church' kind of conference with Tom Bandy (no wiki link so try http://easumbandy.com/) and seemed to be feeling a little tense. On the one hand they were faced with the somewhat idealistic ideas of 'missional congregation' - and on the other the stark stodginess of traditional congregations. I wasn't at the conference so I am not aware of the specific issues - but what was clear was the gut-wrenching struggle between 'vision' and 'reality'.

My conference was a few weeks ago, and the North American mission-dude I was listening to was Brian McLaren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McLaren). Tom Bandy seems to be coming from a fairly liberal, politically progressive denomination, while Brian McLaren comes from an independent evangelical background (though there is, of course, far more to his history). The thing is; they both seem to be pointing to the same thing, a third way, perhaps ill-defined at the moment, but popping up in strange and unforseen ways. Because they come from different starting points the direction which they point is not parallel, which seems reasonable. If you are going to help a liberal, social justice focused, liturgically bound congregation discover new ways of being, you are going to ask them to different things to head in the same direction as a conservative, personal experience focused congregation. And so it is. Tom Bandy asks churches with a liberal heritage (amongst other things) to rediscover the passion of the gospel and personal (not individualistic) relationships with Jesus which underpin Christian practices of justice and truth-telling. Brian McLaren, on the other hand, asks churches of a conservative heritage to explore the justice and community-laden imperatives of the gospel in a counter to a highly individualised faith. A movement from the Christianity of modernity is a movement away from taking sides and a movement to restitution and learning... I hope.

So where does this leave my colleagues? Well I was reminded of something else listening to Brian McLaren. Namely, that the 'new' never replaces the 'old' entirely. In that sense, for the foreseeable future there will be room for traditional groups who do 'old' forms of church really well (whether high or low, conservative or liberal). And so not all congregations need to be forced kicking and screaming in the 21st century - because it can be damaging and it is often impossible (as I have learned recently). But, and this is a big but, there needs to be a huge amount of space for the new ways of doing things. And there needs to be a celebration of these new things. And there needs to be a strong sense of commissioning/blessing of the new activities - because whatever 'emerges' it must be linked 'apostolically' with what has come before. Not everyone needs to change, and the new is not intrinsically better than the old, but the new must have space to grow, to learn and to fail, to witness to the gospel and confess the murky reality of life before our holy God.

I am 30 years old and one of the younger clergy in my denomination. And yet I do not feel like I ‘belong’ to the new church completely. It will probably be far more 'relevant' for my children or my younger brothers. My job is to try and make space for the new, encourage it and infuse in it, in whatever way possible, the great witness to the gospel of the church which is dear to me. Perhaps this makes me one of the 'midwives' of a new generation? If so, a grumpy, dead, white male of a midwife.