a "New Age" Church?

In the mid-eighties I became aware of an increasing search in society for the spiritual. For a century western society had been setting aside the spiritual, the mystical, the paranormal. Anything that could not be scientifically verified was deemed unimportant. This left a deep hole in us; our hearts were empty.

Accompanying my awareness of society's search is that the answers were not coming from Church; the ones searching were certainly not going to Church to find fulfillment. In fact, my sense of Church was that it was fighting this search which was happening in secular society.

I remember one conversation in which I expressed appreciation for a certain musician. "Oh, but his music is so New Age," as if categorizing it as such made it unacceptable for a Christian. Anything that could be labelled "New Age" was seen as non-Christian, if not outright "of the devil", at least back then!

That assertion was certainly a conversation-stopper! Later on I thought about that comment a lot. Isn't Christianity a New Age religion? Haven't we preached an upcoming New Age for centuries? Isn't the New Age what we are striving for? Then why didn't the Church embrace the "New Age" movement and give it some direction? Why could the Church not have at least engaged in some dialogue about the "New Age"?

I sense a rapidly growing spirituality in the world today. To me this is tremendously heartening. It is definitely not something to fight against! In fact, if we do fight against this I suspect we fight against God himself! I believe sincerely that what we are sensing is God waking up his creation.

If the Church doesn't participate in this awakening, it may well find itself on the sidelines in the most important game in history. The Source will accomplish his purposes; have no doubts on that score! If the Church fights what the Creator is doing, it will find itself shunted aside as God works.

For too long the Church has had a fortress mentality. It has tried to defend what it has, what it was; it has tried to regain ground it thinks was lost. "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" may be truer that we think! That is, it may be the mighty fortress which is our God, not the other way round.

We need to relax, people. We need to trust God that he knows what he is doing. We need to seek out the ways he is moving in our world and join him, not fight him.

Another disturbing pattern I have seen in Churches is fear of the devil. But that is another posting!

Another question raised here is, how many people need to awaken before society changes? What is the critical mass? Again, a posting for the future!