Pepperdine Bible Lectures 2010: Hope Rekindled, part 1
This was the year I've been waiting for. You know what it's like to wait for something. You know a change is on the horizon. A fresh breeze will soon start blowing. Your aching joints tell you that the barometric pressure is changing. But you've been waiting and waiting for the change to actually break out, and it can sometimes feel as though it will never come.
This year at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures, the change finally came. It happened Thursday night. The San Andreas Fault might as well have shifted. It was that big! Randy Harris said what I've been waiting for.
It could have been said by any of several "big-name" speakers who have highlighted the Pepperdine Bible Lectures over the last several years: Mike Cope, Jeff Walling, Don McLaughlin, Rick Atchley or Randy. But Randy was the one on this year's program. And he said what I and others of my "generation" have been waiting for. We've known it was needed, but we weren't the ones with the voice to say it. This word had to come from one of the "big" ones.
Don't get me wrong. There are other great speakers. But the five aforementioned guys are the ones who most eloquently helped us "progressives" laugh and cry at our movement's deep, dark problems. We needed them, and they faithfully and beautifully played their God-anointed roles.
For years now, the progressive end of Churches of Christ excelled at poking fun of ourselves. We laughed at Don McLaughlin's stories of legalistic communion-tray-passing or Jeff Walling's finger-wagging at our narrow-mindedness. We nodded our heads in appreciation of Rick Atchley's anger at being left out of the Church of Christ directory because some of their services use instrumental music. We knew that our heritage was deeply sectarian, and we were doing our best to escape that unhealthy past of judging and condemning. Laughing and crying about this was therapeutic. We needed to heal, and these great speakers gave us words to help us work through our sense of loss.
But the time had come for hope. Someone had to think about the future. Many of us have grown tired of self-aggrandizement. We didn't find it helpful to beat ourselves up any more. If we are to have a role in bringing about God's glorious future, we needed to get to work.
Truth is, everyone has been at work. Even these great speakers have been doing some of the very things that I and others wanted to hear. The time simply wasn't right. The shift was still a future one.
This year, though, the Lord anointed Randy Harris to say those very things. He told us that the time had come to stop wallowing and start living out the new reality. He said that those younger than he were already living it out. They weren't waiting. But he encouraged "older" Christians like him to either learn how to live in this new reality or to bless those who will enact a fresh approach to church.
Times have changed. It's a new dawn, the start of a new era. Many things are still the same, but the shift is actually seismic. And I thank God for Randy and for his willingness to boldly declare what needed to be said.
God, give us the courage to live today in Your glorious present/future and not in the past. Informed and shaped by the past, yes! But no longer enslaved by it ... our eyes fixed instead on the prize that is before us.
This year at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures, the change finally came. It happened Thursday night. The San Andreas Fault might as well have shifted. It was that big! Randy Harris said what I've been waiting for.
It could have been said by any of several "big-name" speakers who have highlighted the Pepperdine Bible Lectures over the last several years: Mike Cope, Jeff Walling, Don McLaughlin, Rick Atchley or Randy. But Randy was the one on this year's program. And he said what I and others of my "generation" have been waiting for. We've known it was needed, but we weren't the ones with the voice to say it. This word had to come from one of the "big" ones.
Don't get me wrong. There are other great speakers. But the five aforementioned guys are the ones who most eloquently helped us "progressives" laugh and cry at our movement's deep, dark problems. We needed them, and they faithfully and beautifully played their God-anointed roles.
For years now, the progressive end of Churches of Christ excelled at poking fun of ourselves. We laughed at Don McLaughlin's stories of legalistic communion-tray-passing or Jeff Walling's finger-wagging at our narrow-mindedness. We nodded our heads in appreciation of Rick Atchley's anger at being left out of the Church of Christ directory because some of their services use instrumental music. We knew that our heritage was deeply sectarian, and we were doing our best to escape that unhealthy past of judging and condemning. Laughing and crying about this was therapeutic. We needed to heal, and these great speakers gave us words to help us work through our sense of loss.
But the time had come for hope. Someone had to think about the future. Many of us have grown tired of self-aggrandizement. We didn't find it helpful to beat ourselves up any more. If we are to have a role in bringing about God's glorious future, we needed to get to work.
Truth is, everyone has been at work. Even these great speakers have been doing some of the very things that I and others wanted to hear. The time simply wasn't right. The shift was still a future one.
This year, though, the Lord anointed Randy Harris to say those very things. He told us that the time had come to stop wallowing and start living out the new reality. He said that those younger than he were already living it out. They weren't waiting. But he encouraged "older" Christians like him to either learn how to live in this new reality or to bless those who will enact a fresh approach to church.
Times have changed. It's a new dawn, the start of a new era. Many things are still the same, but the shift is actually seismic. And I thank God for Randy and for his willingness to boldly declare what needed to be said.
God, give us the courage to live today in Your glorious present/future and not in the past. Informed and shaped by the past, yes! But no longer enslaved by it ... our eyes fixed instead on the prize that is before us.
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