APCE 2019: The tide is changing

  1. APCE 2019: Anticipation
  2. APCE 2019: “Come to the Water”
  3. APCE 2019: The tide is changing
  4. APCE 2019: Engaging young Christians in social justice
  5. APCE 2019: How does Jesus respond to generational suffering?
  6. APCE 2019: Revived at the Water’s Edge

BY MARCY DOAK AND JAY MASANOTTI

Thursday morning began with another heavy blanket of fog along the Gulf of Mexico. Our open opening worship of Morning Prayers was led by David Gambrell and Hugh Donnelly provided music leadership. After the morning workshops, we gathered for lunch. During lunch we participated in the APCE Corporate Meeting presided by outgoing president Ken McFayden, academic dean of the Richmond campus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, followed by words from the incoming president Carl Horton.

A highlight of the day was the afternoon plenary session Tide Talk on Faith Formation through Worship with Dr. Tom Long. Dr. Long explained that worship is the environment for the formation of disciples where we get to tell God’s story — a special story.  God is judging us, and we should come to worship in repentance and humility so that we can better tell our story and be the people who God calls us to be. Challenged to approach worship with an attitude of repentance and humility provides us with a timely reminder of the focal point of worship — God.

The pervasive theme of water continued to flow throughout Thursday’s workshops and plenary session, both explicitly and implicitly. The networking workshop, “Youth Workers and Congregational Support,” led by Gina Yeager-Buckley and Kaitie Kautz, used the explicit lens of a pool, with our youth siloed in the shallow end, as the adult members of the congregation swim in the deep end. The afternoon session, “Generation Z: Who They Are and Other Generational Haberdashery,” led by Jason Santos, PMA’s Coordinator for Christian Formation, explicitly examined the proposed cycles of generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe, while paying particular attention to Dr. Jean Twenge’s book, “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.”

The implicit theme that surfaced in both workshops was that of changing tides. The number of youth, and subsequently the adult volunteers, involved with the traditional format of Sunday school is shifting dramatically. Part of Strauss & Howe’s generational theory called “the turning” caused a spiritual snag for me. This idea is a cultural phenomenon caused by a generation’s persona (archetype) unleashing a new era (the turning) in which a new social, political, and economic climate exists. Dr. Tom Long’s plenary Tide Talk further solidified what the Holy Spirit appears to be illuminating–Behold, (the tide is changing), I am doing a new thing (Isa. 43:19). God’s loving judgment is calling us to give up cherished things that may have become idols so that God may set things right. A repentant and humble response in worship to the changing tides will find us moving with, not against, the turning of the spiritual tide. Thanks be to God for unending mercy and grace as the church discerns the difference between what matters, and what appears to matter.

Marcy Doak and Jay Masanotti are students at Union Presbyterian Seminary.