Here's a great article on studying church history to inform our current wrestlings with church and culture. Here's a great quote from the article and I agree with the author.
The Emergents seem to me to have it right: No single program or rulebook can possibly speak to the hearts of this diversely gifted, diversely perceptive, and diversely wounded young generation who yearn for spiritual fulfillment yet deeply distrust 'organized religion.' We need to reassess—to find new models of creative ministries.
What to do in such a time?
This is a time for stories. Maybe stories from history, 'straight up'—carefully researched and narrated by the scholars who have given their lives to unearthing and interpreting historical evidence and shaping the clearest, most accurate and unbiased story they can out of the shards and shadows of the past. Maybe edifying allegories, plays, and tales of various kinds.
And maybe, too, the life stories of those 'dead Christians' who translated the Gospel for their own generations—forcing the church in their times to shake itself out of deep ruts and see the world in new, challenging lights. Maybe these lives can teach us something about how to translate the Gospel for the lost of our own new patchwork, post-Christian generation.
I like this idea of looking to the past for ideas for future new creative models of ministry. What are your thoughts? Is there anything we can learn from the past to help the church move forward into the future?
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