Faithful Innovation The Future is Ancient

The Future is Ancient

At the recent Practicing the Way conference in Portland John Mark Comer said, “the future is ancient.” When I talk about the need for churches to innovate some people think I am channeling Silicon Valley. I’m not if channeling Silicon Valley means throwing out the old in favor of the new. For Christians innovation is about reclaiming the treasures of our tradition, and learning how to share them with new generations. This involves the work of translation. For example, Dwelling in the Word is a simplified version of an ancient way of listening to God speaking through scripture called Lectio Divina.

For follower of Jesus innovation is also about following the Holy Spirit’s leading into what theologian Patrick Kiefert calls “God’s promised and preferred future.” In order to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through scripture, other church members, and neighbors who don’t go to church, we need to be grounded in listening prayer. In fact, all Christian innovation needs to be grounded in listening prayer. Episcopalians have a bias toward action. That’s not a bad thing. But in the Faithful Innovation processes I’ve noticed that teams have trouble staying rooted in the listening prayer practices; they want to leap into action. As Christians everything we do or are interested in pursuing must begin with Jesus and with listening prayer – listening to God speaking to us through Holy Scripture, listening to the people around us and especially mature followers of Jesus, listening to tradition, and listening to “reason” (the latest research in areas ranging from science to history).

One way in which I am drawing from Silicon Valley’s wisdom is by encouraging churches to try experiments, especially small, low-cost ones, without fear of failure. We need to keep learning how to share the hope that is in us with our neighbors and small experiments are the best way to do that. As Jesus’ followers, however, these experiments need to be focused on what we learn during listening prayer, and what we are curious about.

The Holy Spirit is always at work forming and reforming God’s church. As we think about the future of our churches, we need to think about getting back to the basics, things ancient, and discipling the people entrusted to our care into simple spiritual practices that enable them to listen to God and others and participate more fully in God’s life each day. A fantastic resource for this work is The Practicing the Way Course Companion Guide. It’s an eight- session primer on spiritual formation, focusing on engaging in and processing ancient spiritual practices like sabbath, confession, meeting God in pain and suffering, and healing from sin. The primer can be paired with John Mark Comer’s book Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus, Become Like Jesus, Do as He Did, or a series of short videos with the same content (if it’s hard for people to find time to do extra reading). The future is ancient, and to be faithful must be grounded in listening to and following God by using simple, tried and true spiritual practices. These practices are treasures we can share with our neighbors who are searching for God, meaning, and community worthy of the name.

Faithfully,
The Rev. Blair Pogue, Canon for Vitality and Innovation|
Blair.p@episcopalmn.org