In America, we love to have the latest thing. We want the latest version, the new release or the trendy colors. We want the most cutting edge technology or the best practices from the brightest minds and most successful people. But where does the never ending quest of the latest thing get us? Yep, you guessed it. All we get is more and a bigger appetite for something that continues to leave us hungry.
When will we ever learn to be content with what we have?
Recently I read a post by Mark at the First Epistle of Mark titled Behold, I am making all things stale and boring. This blog post is a critique of the current Emerging Church and the dialogue about it. Then I read what Darren Rowse at the LivingRoom wrote about the criticism of the Emergent Church brain trust.
Darren basically recognized Mark's right to be disillusioned with the repeat of the same basic conversations over and over again. But he also pointed out that much of life is covering the same ground that we have already visited in a previous moment. Then Darren beautifully described one of the problems with the western mindset as we continually look for greater truth - something new.
Darren wrote, "I also have been challenged recently by the idea of 'new' and our need for it in society. You write no one writes anything 'new' - I wonder if anyone ever did. Most conversations in all areas of the church today are reshapings of previous conversations.
I can't remember where I heard this - but in a book I've read in the last year or two I was challenged to think about the growing need that western culture has for 'new things' or 'novelty'. In previous generations and centuries the main 'needs' were for food, shelter, relationship etc. Today we live in a world where we 'need' new things. The latest gadget, car, book, idea, theory, paradigm etc. Whilst I don't have anything against new things - I wonder how healthy this obsession is with new/novelty and whether the church buys into it.
I too thirst for a new conversation - but perhaps God's calling us into an ancient discussion. I don't know - maybe I'm wrong - but I'm going to sit with that for a while."
Well said....I concur.
