Cynicism

Like it or not, who we are is, in large part, a reaction to the previous generation. This is true in the church. The emerging church is shaped not only by a vision of what the church should look like, but also as a reaction against what it has not been in the previous generation. Part of our calling is to deliver a church – not an institution, but a living and organic body that’s alive and coursing with Spirit-life – to the next generation. What the emerging church will be in another generation may, in part, be a reaction against the sort of church I’m helping to shape today. What kind of church is that? What is it in my generation that the next generation will react against? My generation is marked by cynicism. Granted, the cynicism is there for a reason. I sometimes wonder, though, if the next generation will view my cynicism the same way that I view the traditionalism of the generation that went before me. Every generation seems to have a fatal flaw. I’m wondering if my generation’s fatal flaw is cynicism.