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Beyond a generation's vision
Years ago during a pastor’s week at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, then popular speaker Lyle Shaller informed me in one of his ingenious analytical treatises that I was doomed to be a “bridge person” between generations. Since then, I have pondered this many—times this accident of birth that planted my feet in two epochs. It seems that my birth date of 1944 places me in some never-never land between the "builder" generation, who knew the Great Depression, and the "boomers," who now are lurching toward retirement. My ministry, I was told, was to learn to connect these two generations that see things differently. This way of thinking brings to mind other references to subsequent generations—I won’t attempt to name them all—who are purported to "see things differently" than the rest of us. What is the meaning of "church" to them or the meaning of "mission"? Indeed, what do these terms—of which all of us are guilty of flippant reference as though everyone else thinks about them exactly as we do—really mean? Since I have been destined to speak the language of at least two generations, let me attempt an answer. We see things through the lens of our experience. It is difficult to do otherwise. Our worldview is a conditioned one. It may be influenced by the level of technological advance we have experienced, or perhaps whether we have known peace or war. The criteria we use to judge something right or wrong changes. My children may be more aware of the environmental mess we have created than I am, whereas I may carry a greater burden for preservation of the institutions of society and the church than their generation. Is someone right and someone wrong in this? Not necessarily, but our experiences have conditioned us to view things differently. We could all learn from the comment of an old pastor who was asked how he stayed fresh in his approach. "When I was young," he said, "I always associated with persons older than I. When I got older, I always sought out people younger than my generation." There is something universal about this challenge to all generations. Our congregations, in their age-segmented habits of Sunday school and the like, have it only half-right when they take seriously life's developmental stages. To experience the other half of truth is to experience things with other generations so we won’t be fooled into thinking that our viewpoint is the only one that can define what is true, what is real. It comes down to a question of vision—how we see things. A Christian, simply put, is to see things as God, the Alpha and the Omega, sees them—not only as our generation sees them. In the church, the generations need one another. Otherwise, none of us will be qualified to say what "the church" means, or what we understand to be "mission." Realizing this, young and old alike may be inspired to reach beyond the human experience of generations to covet the viewpoint of God, discovering what God is doing in the world and how God sees me and my neighbor. Also in this issue: Features Highlights Highlights |
