"8 Track Church in a CD World"

I've been doing some crash course re-reading of some material which formed my early thinking about the challenges currently facing the church and our need to engage in the culture and context we find ourselves in. It's all in preparation for my upcoming report to our Uniting Church Annual Synod [State] Meeting. We are putting forward some results of work done this last year towards a 'blueprint' for the future of ministry with young people in our sphere.

In doing this I have dug out my copy of "8 Track...." a reference to the shortlived recorded music system popular in some 1970s/1980s vehicles that went the way of beta max video players. It's a reference to the church's outdated way of 'being' and the challenges of engaging in a post modern world. It's not a deep philosophical or academic examination but the first half sketches the challenges and the second half offers some hints and hunches of ways forward that in the late 90s and early 2000s were pretty landmark and insightful!! It's always good to go back to these books and remember where the first 'namings' of your own inklings came from...

This one is very much in that primer category and will be valuable in the next week as I frame an important introduction to some shared stories and some Proposals for real change. I will write more about this once the talk is fomed. I will also be designing a scripted piece around the tag of "Imagine..." in relation to the future of ministry with young people and an audio-visual with Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" as backing track.... that's the plan anyhow!!