So, what's God up to now?

That question could be the name of my memoirs if I ever wrote them. The ride I've taken thus far as a follower of Jesus Christ has been amazing. When I decided to go into ordained ministry as a freshman in high school, I prayed, "Lord, make me a pastor in interesting times. I don't want to see your Church stuck, either unable or unwilling to move forward."

Little did I know that prayer was really about me. I was the one who would be challenged with being "stuck". I was the one in danger of either being unable or unwilling to move forward.

Having grown up in east coast Lutheranism, a highly liturgical brand of mainline Christianity that seemed determined keep its eyes in the past and walk backward into the future, the rapidly changing world in which I was called to minister became a completely unknown and foreign land. As a dear friend of mine said in about our fifth year of ministry, "The Church we were prepared to lead, no longer exists."

He was absolutely correct. In seminary, I was taught to be the theologian loci for the parish church. The problem that emerged was the move from modernism to post-modernism. The resulting turmoil within our culture and within a church that was either unable or unwilling to adapt meant that the parish church was vanishing. I was now firmly planted in a mission field and I would have to learn how to be a missionary to a post-modern world or be left staring into the past, indeed becoming a relic of the past myself. So throughout my ministry, God kept prodding and pushing me to let go of the moorings of the past and follow him. How many times have I found myself asking that question, "God, what are you up to now?" God had indeed answered my prayer. These were interesting times.

And how I thank God for answering that prayer! As I look forward, I am so excited about what I see in the future for the Church, for Christ-followers. God is and always will be relevant. Only the Church is in danger of becoming irrelevant, but what a shame that would be because for those who will dare to step out and follow where Christ walks the journey will be amazing.

For me it has been and will continue to be that. Now I see my past from a different perspective. It was preparation for the present. It is my point of origin and your point of origin determines how you will travel to your destination. Perhaps, I'll talk more about that another time.