1. Church on the Mezzanine Floor 

A great deal is being said in the western world today about the end of the Christendom era, and the beginnings of post-Christendom. There is no doubt that this is the case. Somewhere around the mid 1970s we quietly crossed the border between these two eras of immense significance. There was little recognition, at the time, of how momentous this milestone in history would prove to be. But thirty-five years later the outcomes are clearly apparent in every realm of life.

Most of today's churches are products of that era now past, but those churches are `still here'. Similarly all Christians over forty-five years of age are themselves products of that past era, and they also are still with us. On the other hand younger Christians are products of the new era of post-Christendom. Churches which have both older and younger people in their congregations find themselves in a situation never experienced by churches before - i.e., they have members who are the products of two profoundly different periods of history.

Never Before

This is a unique situation! This has never happened before! In the past, culture changed only very slowly. Several successive generations lived in a similar cultural environment. But recently there have been such rapid changes in western culture that we now have, for example, in the same congregations, side by side, people who are the products of two virtually different worlds! In all of Christian history this has never happened before. It is imperative that we fully appreciate this fact. No wonder older and younger church members, as they seek to serve the Lord today, find this time so confusing, perplexing and bewildering. No wonder so many new ways and means, methods and models are being proposed.

We need to understand that though the Christendom-era has `gone' and the post-­Christendom era has `come', we are, currently in a kind of `no mans land' between the two. This is a situation of `overlap'. In other words this is a time of transition.

A Time of Transition

This time of transition between the two eras will last about fifty years, from about 1975 till about 2025. By then, all the people who were shaped by the Christendom era will be gone. Right now is right in the middle of this time of transition. Thus Christendom-era churches, i.e., those over thirty-five years of age, find themselves on the `mezzanine floor'.

A mezzanine floor is, in a sense, neither `one thing nor the other'. It can be an awkward, inconvenient, frustrating, and uncomfortable place to be. This is true for all such churches today. You can see it in every aspect of their life as they wrestle with questions about leadership, forms of meeting, worship, music, hymns and songs, youth ministry, communicating the Gospel and many more.

The same bewilderment is seen as older church members struggle to come to terms with younger Christians' attitudes toward relationships, values, lifestyles, priorities, `secure' employment, marriage, family, loyalty, decision making and `commitment'. This `mezzanine floor' is certainly an uncomfortable, confusing place to be!

We need, in the midst of all of these perplexities to hold fast to certain things. For example -

1. Younger and older Christians never needed each other more than now. This is why it is so unfortunate when older and younger believers separate from each other over secondary issues like preference of music style. Older Christians need their younger brothers and sisters to help them `make sense' of this new world. Younger Christians need to hear from older believers about putting Christ first in life over the 'long­haul', about experiencing the `costs' of true discipleship, about trusting God in the midst of trauma and tragedy, and about the big issues of life as they reflect on them from a `senior's' perspective.

2. Substance matters more than style, and reality more than formality or informality.
If younger and older Christians acknowledge these two things, their meetings and services could be more helpful to them both than they have ever dreamed. They would experience the incomparable privilege of God using them, older and younger, to truly build up, encourage, enlighten and equip each other.

Each desperately needs the perspectives the other has to offer. And, in the process, they would demonstrate to the wider world that older and younger people can communicate, value, honour and greatly benefit each other. Such a demonstration is desperately needed for the sake of our whole society.

Churches can demonstrate that today's `culture gap' can be successfully bridged as a result of God transforming the hearts and minds of both older and younger people.

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Sean Story... Click Here
By John Lord

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‘Hypocrisy
by Ross Stanford'

We have a very good Mission Statement that begins, ‘To live the Good News of Jesus Christ …’ This places our mission emphasis right where it should be – on the way we live! Our challenge is to live the Good News in an authentic way.

In his book, ‘unchristain’, David Kinnaman includes a terrific article by Jim White on living an authentic spirituality (p. 65). White says,

‘Without question, one of the principal stumbling blocks the world has when it comes to the Christian faith has to do with Christians themselves, and specifically the question of hypocrisy.

And rightfully so.

The word hypocrite is taken from an old Greek word that refers to the wearing of a mask. In ancient Greece, actors often wore masks according to the character they played. Their character’s appearance on the stage was a façade, an ‘act’. Hypocrites, then, are mask-wearers. They appear to be one thing, but it’s all a front – behind the mask they are someone else.

The only way this will be addressed is if Christians themselves get a grip on what it means to follow Christ, and then convey that authentically to the world…

He goes on to suggest that the authentic Christian lifestyle is about being open and honest i.e. not pretending to live by a higher standard than you actually do. In other words, ‘Be real!’ Let people see who you really are, and let them see how you face the ups and downs of life.

…an authentic Christian is simply someone who has made that decision to believe in Jesus as his or her forgiver and then attempts to follow him as their leader. But nowhere in this series of events is perfection or sinlessness. Rather, there is simply the intentional effort and sincere desire to recognize God as, well, God.

And then we must convey that to the world. Authentically. I am reminded of the words of the great nineteenth-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who wrote in a personal letter,

Attack me, I do this to myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right-way because I am staggering from side to side!

Simply put, we must take the pressure off ourselves by not presenting ourselves as the message, but rather to point to Jesus as the message. For our part, we are just one example of a person trying to follow him.

What is behind many - not all, but many – charges and accusations against the character and integrity of Christians is the demand for perfection in the life of anyone who claims to bea Christian and urges