Rookie Appearance

Tomorrow morning, the FAA permitting, I will fly to the Asheville, NC area (Kanuga, a conference center) for my first meeting of the House of Bishops. One of the major themes of the meeting will be ministry to and with young adults. This is certainly a timely concern, as anyone familiar with the demographics of the Episcopal Church can attest.

My better self wants to applaud whoever planned a focus in this area. Perhaps we will collectively begin to "get it" and proactively embrace, rather than lag behind, the reality that we live in a post-Christian society, and start to aim our message at theological blank slates rather than Church hoppers who are disgruntled with their present connection.

My more cynical self seriously wonders whether whatever we do is too little, too late, that we have passed a tipping point, and that there will need to be some sort of ecclesial apocalypse before we can emerge reconfigured for more authentic mission in the 21st century as it actually is, not as we wish it were.

I honestly hope my better self is right on this one, and that I come away from Kanuga with a deeper understanding of the issue. In any case, since I'm too lazy to lug my laptop on the trip, and getting a WiFi connection on my iPad is sometimes dicey, I probably won't be blogging for the next week or so.