Recently the Presbyterian church of New Zealand had their biannual general assembly. Their keynote speaker was a Rev Randall Prior. He spoke on "Reformed and Reforming" http://www.presbyterian.org.nz/4955.0.html. The MP3's of his presentations are available for download. We have recently had a couple of sermons on the topic "Is the Church Dieing?". The consensus was that no the church is not dieing, but the form of church is. Era's: * Apostolic period: <4th Century "Go into the world, baptise all nations" * Christendom period: started with the conversion of Constantine. "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever" * Modernism Enlightenment: Started 17th century "I think therefore I am". Man is the center of existence, not God. Church becomes defined by the world, and it value according to human purpose. * Post-modern: "All truth is relative". 'We' has given way to 'I'. * What's next? Post-post-modern era?? There is a very good cultural comparison through these periods here http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=744 We are suffering a sharp decrease in Christendom, and as a result the other forms are raring their heads. This sparked a good debate at my home group recently. Here I plan to blog some of our thoughts. What are the challenges facing the (western) Church? * We don't really believe the power of the gospel. If we did we would not have any issue sharing it. * Young people only do what they want to do. * Churches are collapsing because they cannot support themselves/pastor any more. * Organised groups are on the decline (Lions, Scouts, Rotary, APW, churches etc.) * We are too busy * The current group of young people are in generation Y. This is the first generation bought up with a 'me first' attitude. * The next group of young people are generation i (those born after the internet) * Typically the church stays 10-20 years behind culture. * Culture is tending more and more liberal (need reference) which means that our morality is shifting from a five-prong approach "Harm", "Fairness", "Authority", "Ingroup", "Purity" to a two prong approach "Harm" Fairness" (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html)