This morning Dev and I rolled down to Paradise with Randy and Jewel for the Northern California Conference Midterm Constituency meeting. It was my first time in the Paradise sanctuary and it was great! They had good sound and lighting. The vibe was great.
Most of the Constituency meeting consisted of the formalities that I expected but there were a few parts that got me thinking:
During the financial report it was said that the majority of the conferences income is tithe collected from churches. They said 16% was sent to the General Conference, smaller percentages were given to other non local areas and 60% is kept local. While I'm sure there are good reasons for the allocations, and I don't pretend to know how the global Adventist church operates on a financial level, it seems crazy to me to send such a large percentage to the general conference and other faraway places. I could understand sending 5% to support the global church, but anything more seems like it would make the organization too top heavy.
Also interesting in the financial report was the fact that of the 60% that is kept local, only 2.something% is allocated to youth/leoni meadows. I'm not sure why youth and leoni meadows are grouped together, but I think this smallish percentage for two important ministries sends a message about where the conference priorities are (not).
I got the impression that the conference is in self-preservation mode and not in proactive equip and support (constituent churches) mode. Which, seeing as how churches are the primary source of income, you would think they would want to do all they could to invest in healthy church ministry.
The hot topic of the morning was womens ordination and the facilitators avoided mention of it for the majority of the meeting, but at one point they opened the floor for discussion and this issue just jumped out in the forefront of everything. It turned into an applause war after each comment and the discussion was closed after 20 minutes or so. Most of the naysayers were chauvinist old men who seemed to believe that women were too ignorant to lead men. Some masked their pride well but I didn't hear one comment that was biblical or coming from a place of humility.
Doug Batchelor commented. They cut his microphone off before he was done. (Have you ever met a more pompous dogmatic bastard?) His microphone should have been shut off years ago. It is disappointing that so many people blindly applaud his ramblings...I had so much faith in the discernment of the Adventist people... Anyways, this blog is not about Doug.... but really. I will never trust a man who promotes his ideas as "amazing facts". The ideas I accept as most credible are usually prefaced with "I might have this all wrong, but..." I just can't get past his contrived assurance.
So the meeting ended with this breakout into groups for smaller discussions. During the this time one old saint who was in the same group as me was commenting on how "all the youth" are leaving the church. "There's no youth anymore!" You know when someone says something from the bottom of their soul? This was heavy on her heart. . . And I've found that it's heavy on mine too. I have an answer for her.
The young generation is leaving the church because the church is having a different conversation than they are. The Church's voice has lost its relevance because they are no longer speaking to the same things that we are. Simple as that. It's not because the music isn't cool, or because maranatha put that ugly stone work on the outside EVERY church they built, or because potluck food is downright awful sometimes. The rate at which we communicate is so quick that a topic or issue can be discussed between a wide group of friends fairly quickly. Questions are asked concepts are wrestled with and conclusions are made within a social circle in a matter of a week or a month. Not so with the church.
The fact that we are having the womens ordination conversation now opposed to 60 years ago when the rest of America was having it, is a really good example of why the church has become irrelevant to the young generation. We would ask, why are you still harping on rock music in the church? The rest of Christianity finished that conversation 20 years ago.
In order for any organization to survive in our culture their ideas and methods have to be (sometimes drastically) updated on a daily basis to answer to culture. The church shouldn't be distracted by just updating our clothing or adding colored lights or drums to the stage. Our theology needs to be updated. We need to start answering the questions that people are asking. And we can't keep copping out with easy answers. It might even be okay to come up with different answers than the rest of Christianity. But if we do, our reasoning better be spot on! Answers like "that's how they did it in bible times." or "sister white told us to do it this way." or "this is just the way we do it here." are weak and lazy and they aren't working anymore. Really. You can tell by looking at the average age of church attendees, or the average age of conference employees, or even by poking your head into the awkward smallish youth rooms of churches.
Am I speaking truth?
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