The great divide...

It seems like since the election the conversation has been on the red states and the blue states, the president or a republican senator needs to reach out and serve the other side, we are a country divided, etc. A lot about how divided we are, us and them. It is very understandable since the election is about two parties (sorry but the green and independent party are small blips on the political screen) one will win and the other loses. Many different elections with differing results except one, one guy or gal wins and the other loses.

But the past few weeks, I have heard more conversations about a division of the same magnitude in the church. For many years it was the youth and college age types complaining because they are overlooked and rarely considered in the mainstream church. They became parents of young school aged children and moved to churches that had great programs for their children. I heard that over the past ten years in this presbytery about half of the members have left or died and were not replaced by a new crop of faithfuls. HALF!

I went to a fiftieth birthday party of a friend and some other fifieth types were talking about starting a new church. Why? It is red state / blue state stuff. A large group of people who don't like the trend of the Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, and other mainline Churches not valuing the same thing as them. The general assembly or conferences are changing the rules on them, developing a Us and Them feel.

These are good people who are sticking with the traditional values but with a new feel of less churchishness. Relationship was a key word. People would get to know each other, trust each other, be accountable to one another, a place where they can bring someone who is hurting. These are not the pomos but people who are living midway to or near retirement and who's children are grown and leaving soon or have left the nest. It is the same conversation I have had with pomos. The emergent church is not age exclusive. The conversation is springing up in more unlikely places with people I never thought wanted anything new.

These guys have the money to do something. It will not be a afternoon service in an established and dying church, it will be in a new place that has a monthly rent that these guys can afford to pay. They have been tithers and understand Kingdom principles of giving. They don't get scholarships, grants, allowances from home, they are and have been the givers of the church. They have been paving parking lots, serving in the children's education programs, singing in the choir, serving as elders and deacons. This group, when they move their capital from a denomination to a neighborhood fellowship, will send a huge message to denoms - its over.