To Dare to Keep Moving Forward is to Dare to Ask Questions...

One of the great problems of organized religion is that it traps us into forms and mindsets that no longer serve God's purposes. This is true of the most vibrant movements in the church. The setting up of organizations to facilitate the fresh work of God begins the downward move towards dependence on systems to run and control things. This is hard to avoid, but the biggest danger of it is that we are generally unaware of what is happening and give ourselves completely to what we have established. This then tends to set in concrete something that is meant to remain dynamic and ready to change in any given moment as new generations come along. Even when a new generation comes along with vision to bring positive change, they encounter a system that has hardened and unable to change in any significant way.

One example of this is the charismatic movement that burst on the scenes in the '60s. I was in on the beginnings of that movement when it was fresh and vibrant. Today, although much of the language has remained the same, it has gone the way of all movements and is stuck in its own traps.

There are always 'prophets' who are alert to this hardening and address it in a variety of ways. That is true today as it has been throughout history. I'm not referring to people who are labeled prophets or to people who may have 'prophetic ministry' but to those who are awake to this reality and are calling God's people to new ways of seeing and understanding God and others. There is a great wealth of writing that is going on now that is challenging the status quo of the Christian world. Among them are people like Albert Nolan, Brian McLaren, Sharon Baker, Renee Girard, Walter Wink, Walter Brueggeman, Phyllis Tickle...and many more. These are not stereotypical prophets but are scholars and pastors and leaders calling for God's people to look at God through a different set of eyeglasses and realize that God is constantly moving forward and moving us with Him. If you read the Bible through the lens of a trajectory, you begin to realize that God has had His people on a trajectory that has continued to this day.

To dare to keep moving on that trajectory is to dare to ask questions and to sort through what we have inherited.

One well-known man in more recent Christian history, Watchman Nee, understood this concept and wrote the following:

"...We cannot overestimate the greatness of our heritage, nor can we be sufficiently grateful to God for it. But if today you try to be a Luther or a Wesley, you will miss your destiny. You will fall short of the purpose of God for this generation, for you will be moving backwards while the tide of the Spirit is flowing on. The whole trend of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a forward trend.

"God's acts are ever new. To hold on to the past, wanting God to move as He has formerly done, is to risk finding yourself out of the main stream of His goings. The flow of divine activity sweeps on from generation to generation, and in our own it is still uninterrupted, still steadily progressive."