Leonard Sweet

One of the key people that I really wanted to see at Breakforth this year was Leonard Sweet. He is one of the key people thinking through the church's mission in the 21st century and how it differs in many ways from previous eras. His biggest challenge I think when I went to see him is that God is calling us to witness and be a disciple of Christ in and for this time. The challenge he said was that this was not the time that he would have chosen to be in. Leonard feels he is much more Victorian at heart, but the fact is, he is in the 21st century with all of its changes and differences.

The best way to describe the time is TGIF (Twitter, Google, Ipad and Facebook). This is a digital, social media time in which people are connecting to people in very different ways. He encouraged us to look at it like this: when missionaries go out into the field they must first learn the language in order to connect with the people to whom they are taking the Gospel. For us as a church, we are not only NOT learning the language, we are willfully refusing to learn it. This is a problem.

But there is also a balance that has to be acknowledged. For the church not only connects with the outside world to bring them to Christ, but is also a worshiping community who already has traditions that have been nurtured and cultivated over the centuries. It is not possible nor desirable to throw the old out and go with the new. There is an ancient - future dynamic that has to be taken into account. But the heart of what he said that points us in the right direction of the church is that we have to be very cautious about mistaking bringing people into the church as the mission of the church. The mission is to bring people to Christ and to help them grow and deepen in their faith. Our church programs are a means to a greater end, and never the end themselves.