For me 'Left Behind' has become much more than a book.  Much like 'Tea Party' has colloquially become a descriptive for a particular archetype of a group of people, Left Behind has become the same for me.

Recognizing that I am working with generalities here and that generalities always do a disservice to some people who identify with the group, for me 'Left Behind' has come to describe a particular type of church goer. (I use 'church goer' here because I find that some of the people, while they might identify strongly as Christian, exhibit far too many actions that call to question the authenticity of their identity. They do, however, tend to be very good at going to church).  This group believes that one day those who have not been 'good Christians' will be separated from the love of God – left behind as all the 'good' people get sucked up in God's magical, over-sized Hoover (actually probably a Dyson, I can't help but believe God would have upgraded by now). That may not be exactly how they would put it, but you get the idea.

Along with this perspective comes a few other... well, let's call them personality quirks.  Frequently, Left Behinders have a quiet (mostly unspoken) air of superiority. Let's face it, if you know you are going to be saved (sucked up by the Holy Dyson) and that others are going to be left behind to wallow in their heathenness... it would be sort of hard not to feel the littlest bit superior.  Along with that comes a few things: very little spiritual growth because they already have it right, a general sense of entitlement, resistance to 'other,' resistance to new ideas (or change),  and the ability to be thought of as 'nice' without actually having to consistently demonstrate love of neighbor and enemy.

This all creates a problem with moving the church forward.  I have to completely agree with John Spong's assessment that the Church must change or die.  As a matter of fact, I am no longer interested in participating in arguments that suggest otherwise. There is much work to do and anything that distracts from moving forward puts the Church that much further behind.

That's the crux of the problem.  As a church tries to reclaim the foundations of Christianity (to reassert the necessity for love of God and neighbor and those we may perceive as enemy; to actively minister and worship with those who have been marginalized; to stand up to the status quo, hypocrisy, piousness, and those who take advantage of 'the least of these'), we meet great resistance from two places. 

The first is the Left Behinders, who do not like the change that comes with doing all of those things.  What the change looks like can be offensive to people who believe they already have it right.  It confronts who they have been for years and can even suggest to them that they were wrong. Understandably that can introduce doubt in a place where there had only been blessed assurance that they had their one way ticket to the Holy Dyson in the sky.  It also means letting in people who may have previously been thought of as outsiders, 'others' and quite possibly the ones that would miss out on the great vacuum ride to the heaven. 

Typically, the Left Behinders, have established some place of power, prestige or position and the change needed in the church to avoid slow death threatens those places.  They are likely to hunker down without any real regard to the theological soundness of the movement forward (or movement back to biblical foundations) and will cherry pick verses, make appeals to tradition and even demonize the leaders of the change.  Their reactions are completely understandable considering what they believe and how they have experience Christianity thus far.  It also happens to be a path whose tangent would continue to lead the church further and further away from it's calling...and it is not acceptable.

The second resistance will come from those who agree with the need for change. They tend to have a real passion for the life and teachings of Jesus and in their own lives you can see those teachings mirrored in their passion for those some might think of as 'other.' These are people who have frequently themselves been marginalized within the traditional church; their voices, while allowed to be expressed, are lovingly (possibly 'nicely' is a better word) minimized by the Left Behinders who hold the power.

As change begins to be realized, it is this group that will put up the most earnest and biblical arguments to slow the change down – they don't want to leave the Left Behinders behind.... ironic, isn't it? ... (and we're not even done with the irony yet).  Their love of neighbor will lead them to advocate for those who, in one form or another, had previously 'nicely' marginalized their voice - the marginalized voice speaking up for the powers that be (and the irony still isn't done).

It is actually easy to see why they would react that way.  It is exactly what they wish, on some level, someone would have done for them when their voices had been marginalized and it does seem to be the loving thing to do.... and it is, for awhile.  There is a point, however, when it should be clear that, while some have chosen to be a part of the change, others do not have ears to hear and out of love for the overall Body of Christ (of which they are a part) we must shake the dirt off of our collective feet and continue on our journey forward.  While we do, we can still wish blessings upon them, but in a time when transformation is essential for the longevity of the Church, holding our forward movement back for those who have made it clear they do not have ears to hear is analogous to shooting the Body of Christ in the foot.

Ironically, there will be Left Behinders that chose to remain behind.  They will act as an anchor pulling the Body backwards as it tries to move forward.  The funny thing is, if we don't move forward we will continue to move on that tangent further and further away from God's will and when the second coming does arrive,  at least in terms of their own theology, we will all be left behind...even them.

I meet monthly with a group of ministers to discuss the current state of The Church and possible paths forward. We guide our discussions by working our way through books that do much the same thing.  I suppose our hope is that the people who write these books will have much more experience in helping churches gain new life than any one of us individually might have and thus give us much needed guidance in doing the same for the churches where we serve (and a magic blueprint would be nice too).

The most recent book talks about churches “reinventing” themselves to appeal to younger generations. Now mind you, it is not advocating for or against “reinventing” church, it is merely making commentary about churches doing so. Well, I have to say, I had to read that part of the book over and over again to try to make sense of it. Something just wasn't setting well with me about “reinventing” church.

The book itself is about change and the part that mentions churches reinventing themselves is actually  addressing the way change represents loss – loss of the past, loss of how things used to be done, loss of traditions.  With that loss is, understandably, also the loss of things that helped define both personal and corporate identity.  So, reinventing, changing, represents loss which threatens identity.  I have no problem with that.  Not only does it make sense, I've seen it happen time and time again in church when change is introduced.

It seems to me that the fact that we see change as “reinventing” is the problem. Our churches and our personal lives are supposed to be about journeying to\toward\and with God.  When applied to churches within our modern context, talking about reinventing our churches, changing to appeal to younger generations, points to a previous lack of movement, a stagnation.

That's the problem. At some point we, The Church, stopped moving and we allowed our identity to get wrapped up in the pursuit of the things of this world rather than in the pursuit of God.  Change must be who we are – people in motion, moving toward God, toward Creation, toward the children of God.  As Christians, when change threatens our identity, it doesn't point to a problem with change, it points to a problem with our identity. God was constantly calling the people of God to go on journeys (think Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Jonah) and Jesus asked everyone he met to change in some way.  In every case, constant change.  To be Christian is to be a people of change, the old life is gone the new life has begun.

Despite our best efforts, we never manage to be the people God calls us to be, but we must always try – and that means changing from what we once were to something closer to what God is calling us to be, reinventing ourselves every day, every hour, every minute to be a better reflection of  God. 

It is a problem that we think of changing as reinventing ourselves. If we hope to survive going forward, rather than reinventing ourselves, we have to reclaim our heritage as people constantly on a journey, embracing change at every turn...and we have be willing to do it every day, every hour, every minute.  Rather than threatening our identity, change must be our identity as we constantly reinvent ourselves closer to the reflection of God we were created to be.

I've been thinking about this for a while.  Can the typical church catch up to the frenzy of progression that is happening in technologically oriented fields?  Better yet, does it want to?  Or even better, does it need to?

 In 1965, Gordon Moore, inventor of an integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit increases at an exponential rate, doubling every two years.  This observation, over the past 40 or so years, has proven itself to be true and is known as Moore's Law (not to be confused with Moore's law, which basically says people may not want more information because it will probably mean they have to think more. While the two actually have a very interesting implications when put together, that's not what I'm interested in today).

Moore's law has immense implications for anything with technology (specifically integrated circuits) at it's core.  For awhile people, even Moore himself, thought we were at an end to Moore's law, but recent work in silicon based transistors has extended the reality of the exponentially increasing rate of technology.  What this mean is, we have moved from the first programmable computer (Charles Babbage, concept in 1812-1822) to the modern handheld computer in less than 200 years.  And 200 years is nothing more than a blip on the 100,000 year history of modern humanity.   So, imagine the progress we've made in that tiny little blip (from a general concept of computers to handheld, wireless web-surfing) and just try to extrapolate exponentially where we will be in the next 20 years - it's mind boggling.

Now, look at the past 200 year history of the church.  The Great Schism was more than 900 years ago.  Luther's 95 Thesis and the resulting split from the Catholic Church was almost 500 years ago.  In the last 200 years...well, we do catch the tail end of the Second Great Awakening, but let's face it we've resisted any change or advancements for the most part.  A quick glance at The Presbyterian Hymnal shows a remarkable number of songs from more than 200 years ago.

So, while the world (particularly the technological part of it) has raced ahead at light speed, the church has clung to the past, changing when it was forced to, but remaining relativelyconsistent over the past 200 years.  Honoring our past, our history, is very important and is something for we should strive.  Living in the past, however, is not something for which we should strive.

At heart here is the question of relevance.  Many of today's young people sight the lack of the church's relevance in their lives as the reason the do not attend church.  Did you catch that?  Not, they don't believe in God.  Not, they don't like the worship service.  They don't find the church relevent for their modern lives.

So, is it that the church is no longer relevant in young people's lives or could it be that in holding on so tightly to the past, we are letting the future slip away from us?  Could it be that in our resistance to move forward in the world, particularly when it comes to technology, that we are shunning the very thing that would help reconnect the church with the young, disenfranchised believers?  I believe so.

Here's the thing though - at the blazing fast speed at which technology moves forward, a speed that is increasing daily and so far shows no signs of slowing, the more we (the church) hesitate, the more we reflect on the "rightness" of integrating technology into worship or into the way we communicate with the world, the further behind we fall and the larger the ground that we will have to make up.  With each passing moment, we are effectively giving up the opportunity to communicate to young believers that what God has to offer them is more than relevant, that what God has to offer the world can change the world for the better, that the church while it is soundly in the world it is not of the world and for that reason can offer them a needed respite from the world without the need to completely disengage from the communities and relationships they have there.

Does the church need to catch up?  Yes.  Can the church catch up?  Yes, but not if it waits much longer.