Dear Caldwell,
We live in a time of “nones” and SBNRs and how the church relates to them will have a lot to do with what the church looks like for us, our children and our children’s children. “Nones” are those who indicate “none” when asked to identify their faith tradition. SBNR is short for how more and more young people define themselves – “spiritual but not religious.”
I was blessed to spend two days this week at a church conference on how churches should relate to these growing groups, whose members are turned off by churches’ homophobia, judgment and hypocrisy.
Speakers, presenters, worship leaders and participants asked (in one way or another):
- Will the church at large take offense and look down its nose at these growing ranks?
- Or will we ask what we can learn from them, their questions and how we can look for answers, together?
I came away with lots of notes and ideas. I also came home appreciative that ministers and lay leaders can gather and spend time in honest inquiry, confession, admitting our mistakes (such as not listening, or trying to answer every question with rote doctrine). Not that long ago, church leaders wouldn’t have dared. The sign that 300+ church leaders and thinkers gathered to ask humble questions and demonstrate the vulnerability to say that we have missed the mark with many people is a positive sign for the future of faith.
As meaningful and provocative as the conference was, I must say I spent a good deal of time there in grateful prayer. Thanks to your authentic curiosity, openness to change and risk and radical hospitality, I was reminded over and over again that we are on the right path in seeking answers and inviting others to join us. I look forward to a chance to share more with you sometime but, for now, please accept my gratitude for all the ways you serve Christ by so vigilantly protecting his church from its greatest threats, which sometimes even include the church and organized religion themselves.
In Christ, John