Eighteen years ago it was my privilege to take up the role of what we’re now calling the “Lead Pastor” of the Redwood Park Church. I entered into Redwood at a time of seismic paradigm shift that was a source of great tumult not just for Redwood but also for evangelical churches all across Canada. Some, particularly some over 50 who had invested their lives into building the church, struggled with the new and sometimes unfamiliar paradigms that were emerging. Others clearly understood that for the church to remain effective in its mission to reach those apart from Christ as well as the next generation, they would have to sacrifice their own comforts for the sake of prioritizing the needs of those we are called to love and impact with the message and life of Jesus.
The late 80’s into the early 90’s for many Canadian churches with an evangelical heritage were a time of what’s been called “the worship wars.” Some churches moved through them well, others have still held onto old paradigms, creating greater distance between the local church and the average Canadian. Redwood did not move through this period unscathed but eventually moved through to the other side and was sometimes viewed as a positive example within the evangelical community of a church that was effective at prioritizing the needs of those apart from faith in Christ.*
Twenty years later those who study culture and the church like George Barna in the United States, Alan Hirsch formerly from Australia and Alan Roxburgh here in Canada are all telling us that we are the midst of a much larger shift than any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. Roxburgh calls these “rancorous times!” Here we are for the first time in Canadian history, watching churches with an evangelical heritage not just in decline, which has never happened before, but in many cases move into steep decline, while the more progressive churches over the last 20 years think they are still relevant because of the changes that have been made.
Roxburgh led me to look at a book by Joshua Cooper Ramo called “The Age of the Unthinkable.” Roxburgh wants us to understand that title is a great description of our time. He passionately says to the Canadian church that we live in the age of the unthinkable, a time of massive cultural change where the real driver of change is the unexpected, where “focusing on well established categories and measurables is worse than useless.” He goes on, “The standard answers operating in our churches and among our leaders today can only misdirect us … focusing on improving worship, developing better evangelism, getting more imaginative discipleship programs or creating a passionate spirituality will no longer get at the levels of change we face … living in an age of the unthinkable.”
“Unthinkable Times” … Roxburgh just might be onto something. As we move into the 2010’s, there’s a complexity to doing kingdom work here in Canada that is deeper than most of us have ever experienced. The transitions that led to the worship wars of 20 years ago, pale in comparison to what we fact in the next few years. My fear is that we will move into this future with grasping the enormity of what’s before us and in the end become increasingly irrelevant to and out of touch with the average Canadian.
My prayer is that the passion that has clearly marked Redwood for at least the past 20 years, that we would be like the Old Testament, “men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do,” (1 Chronicles 12:32, NIV), would remain core to who we are. And what that means is that I like many others need to be careful that in our deep and irrevocable passion to hold on to the truth of God’s Word, that we don’t hold onto other “stuff” that gets in the way of mission in an age of the unthinkable.
* (Side note: Both Faith Today published by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada as well as the denominational magazine Alliance.ca have published articles about Redwood’s missional focus. You can download a pdf of the Alliance .ca article here.)
