THE CHANGING CONTEXTS OF PREACHING AND WORSHIP 1

4/27/2020 1

4/27/2020

“ Chaplain Gore, Do you have a moment to talk with me about preaching?” “ That makes my heart hurt.”

2

WHY STUDY OUR CONTEXTS?

• • • •

Great philosophical and cultural differences permeate our society Great philosophical and cultural differences separate you from those to whom you minister Increasing diversity and generational realignment of society require new tools for reaching the next generation Strategies provide intentional direction and focus for our methods

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 3

ROADMAP

• • • • • •

Demographics Mega-Change Philosophical & Cultural Change Generational Change The Millennial Generation ( and Zs) Preaching and Worship in the NOW

4/27/2020 4

4/27/2020

Why is This Important?

DEMOGRAPHICS!

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 5

CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS

• • • • • •

Currently, 75% of Americans are Caucasian By 2050, only 50% of Americans will be Caucasian The Hispanic population has overtaken African Americans as the largest “minority” population In some areas of the country (e.g., parts of California), there is no longer a majority population Racial and Ethnic diversity- a fact of life. Millennials most diverse generation in history.

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 6

THE ARMY: 2010

•

Significant racial/gender diversity

•

Army Endstrength

: 561,979 • Millennials-

27 291,502 (51%) Under

• Busters-

256,767 (46%)

• Boomers-

13,710 (2.4%) Over 46

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 7

4/27/2020

What is the New Normal?

MEGA-CHANGE!

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 8

CHANGE IS HERE!

• • • •

1 Chronicles 12:32 “Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times , to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command” (ESV).

Understand Know Do

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 9

CHANGE IS HERE!

•

“At the start of the third millennium, we live in a time of vast changes —changes so epochal that they will dwarf those experienced in earlier eras .” Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future, 11

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 10

CHANGE IS HERE!

• “

Fifty years after the printing press

was invented, we did not have old Europe plus the printing press.

We had a different Europe

.” Neil Postman, Technopoly, 18 •

Fifty Years after . . .

–

Radio?

–

Television?

–

Internet?

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 11

CHANGE IS HERE!

•

“We need some historical balance here: though we are always living in ‘times of transition,’ some times are more transitional than others . We seem to be in one of those times. Some of the trends I’ve listed above are, I think, symptoms of an epochal shift in world history, of the kinds that occurs only every few centuries.” Peter J. Leithart, SATP, 13

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 12

CHANGE IS HERE!

•

“ Christians are now the foreigners in a post-Christian culture , and we have got to wake up to this reality if we haven’t.”

Dan Kimball,They Like Jesus But Not The Church, 30 4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 13

My Reading List

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 14

4/27/2020

What has given us the New Normal?

PHILOSOPHICAL & CULTURAL CHANGE

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 15

WORLDVIEWS Plato

Truth

Premodern (Truth Objective) Modern Aristotle Descartes

Truth

Truth

(Truth? Subjective) Postmodern

Truths?

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 16

POST-MODERNISM: In Brief

• • •

Chronologically a Enlightenment development beyond the rational worldview fostered by the Represents a dissolving of an orderly , structured view of reality Represents the abandonment of a “metanarrative” and the embracing, instead, of many (mini) stories (in community)

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 17

POST-MODERNISM: In Brief

•

Is thoroughly anti-foundationalist suspicious of the objectivity of knowledge and

•

Rejects the secularized notion of progress (a Christian heresy) and questions if knowledge is “good”

•

Embraces ways of knowing, other than by reason : intuition, experience, feeling

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 18

POST-MODERNISM: Impact

• •

Ideas have legs! It is impossible to understand postmodernism without noting its impact on our culture What begins in the ethereal realm of the academy eventually show up in popular culture: Film, Architecture, Popular Worldview The Arts, TV and

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 19

4/27/2020

POST-MODERNISM: the Arts

• • • • •

Blue Man Group: Music and Performance Art Warhol, Cristo Karen Finley Robert Mapplethorpe Andres Serrano

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 20

4/27/2020

POST-MODERNISM: Film and TV

• • • • • •

Field of Dreams (from the book, Shoeless Joe) Groundhog Day Pulp Fiction Reality TV Seinfeld, “a show about nothing” Jackass (MTV)

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 21

4/27/2020

POST-MODERNISM: Architecture

• • •

Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA Shopping Malls Theme Parks

CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 22

POST-MODERNISM: Architecture

Modern Postmodern 4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 23

THE POSTMODERN CONUNDRUM

•

“We in North America live in a Disneyworld culture , a Cool Whip society, in which we engage in autoerotic telephone sex in place of real intimacy, splash in simulated lakes and waterfalls at recreational waterparks rather than risk the pollution at the local lake or river,

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 24

THE POSTMODERN CONUNDRUM

•

shop in climate-controlled malls that attempt to look like old-fashioned shopping neighborhoods and even watch the horrors of war carefully sanitized on television to give us a sense that we are really there, yet not leave us uncomfortable with what we have seen.”

– Walsh and Middleton, Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be, 39 4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 25

THE POSTMODERN CONUNDRUM

•

“As theologian Langdon Gilkey puts it, ‘An autumnal chill is in the air; its similarity to the chill in other periods of cultural decline is undeniable.’”

– Walsh and Middleton, Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be, 25 4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 26

My Reading List

4/27/2020 CHANGING CONTEXTS 1 27

THE CHANGING CONTEXTS OF PREACHING AND WORSHIP 1

4/27/2020 28