AncientFuture Practices for the Church

Years ago, Leonard Sweet used the term "AncientFuture Faith" in a number of his books and in speaking engagements around the country.

He encouraged the church to embrace the ancient nature of the church in new and future oriented ways. I think Ancient comes easy to us.  We read regularly from scriptures that are thousands of years old, we have rituals that date back thousands of years.  For some churches, hymns that are a hundred years old are thought of us as new, and contemporary.

The Future doesn't come as easily.  We might embrace the technology and the culture we are in, but can't always connect it to our forebears who lived without Google and email.  The Biblical texts seem foreign to a culture who is far from the agrarian and rural roots of our past.

But this is the situation we have been placed in- we are people who have inherited and embraced a 2000 year old Gospel, and we live and find it compelling in the 21st century.

Working in the church with tools like websites, social media, email, and multimedia, and always attempting to share a message of Good News that  has its beginning with a 1st century Jewish Rabbi is an ever daunting task.

How do we do this with integrity and authenticity?  How do we use these tools that are so integral to our culture, and yet continue to live in a culture formed by the Gospel?  These are questions that I have been asking for a few decades now.  Each year brings new challenges.

This article crossed my path this month:  Ancient practices meet new technology when Episcopal monks share wisdom online.  It is the story of the Society St. John the Evangelist, a small Episcopal monastery in Boston.

In the nearly seven years that I have had a relationship with the group, I have seen these monks embrace technology in ways that are authentic to their life absorbed in daily prayer and the Book of Common Prayer.

In early days they used print resources to get their teachings across, then they moved to email.  During the seasons of Advent and Lent they would send short devotionals out to the friends of the society.  Devotionals to read that were welcome celebrations each day.

Then they started a series called, "Brother Give Us a Word" that began with a season, and now is something that shows up in my mailbox each day when they aren't doing special series.

Now their daily offerings come with videos and have links to more resources on their websites like sermons and documents.

Their resources have grown significantly as have their following on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Some questions:

• How can our churches embrace technology and our own weekly/daily patterns of life and share them with those seeking to grow in their faith? (United Methodists have the online Upper Room as one example)
• Who do we need to partner with to make this happen with authenticity and integrity?
• What kinds of time and financial investments would need to be made?
• Do we have the will to move in this direction?