This is a good word Tod. I do worry a bit about idealizing the global church given the divisions that persist there as well. In this age of discontinuous change it seems there is no where to turn for stability. That being said I'm reminded of studies that show that Americans have far more anxiety in our lives compared to people around the globe, despite the fact that we objectively have much less to worry about. If I recall the studies, they point to the ability of people in unstable global settings to handle a lot more uncertainty because they are used to it. Americans, on the other hand, are much less practiced at engaging uncertain futures. Hopefully, as we get better at engaging these new circumstances, our depression and anxiety will turn to the kind of hopeful anticipation you describe so well in this post. I too am grateful for the ecumenical and international experience at Fuller. I'm glad to have you there helping lead the charge.

Tod, Good stuff. One comment at the end stuck out to me. You say, "The cultural advantage we experience during the 18 centuries of Christendom has almost completely dissipated." I agree that the place of privilege is rapidly declining but I think it still lingers in powerful ways that undermine our ability to commit to new ways of leading. In reality, it may have "almost completely dissipated," but in our pastoral imaginations it still seduces us with the illusion that we can return to the Promised Land with a few tweaks here and there. Our close proximity to the good old days, especially in the mainline church, makes it hard to imagine that there is no going back. We're like the first generation of exiled leaders in Babylon, and for the younger generation of pastors, we're second-generation exiles trying to lead the first generation of exiles. We are in contexts where people aren't yet convinced that Christendom is gone for good. I think you state the challenge well, I just think the challenge of adapting leadership in this new reality is more daunting than any of us would like to admit. We not only have to help people discover hopeful new ways of being the church, we have to help people recognize just how hopeless our current trajectory is. The prophet Jeremiah comes to mind as a good model of this kind of leadership.

Great stuff Tod. I wholeheartedly agree about where the change is going to come from. Sign me up as a member of the butter-knife tinkerers who are experimenting in the garages of churches around the country. One observation I have about some of the conversations going on among the newly forming Presbyterian bodies is that people have expressed great confidence that somehow the new systems will allow for the kind of experimenting you describe. That may be true, but I'm aware that there is nothing really substantial in the current system that keeps us from missional experiments. Whether that kind of work is officially sanctioned by the national governing body, it has really always been possible. Too often, pointing fingers at the system has proven to be a wonderful act of work avoidance, a way to soothe frayed nerves about the chaos afoot in so many of our churches, a way to say that the problem is out there somewhere. We have to face the harsh reality that we, as leaders in the church, have passed on the opportunity to try different ways of being the church. We have been stuck and a new system is not going to be enough to get unstuck. If anything, creating new systems might reinforce the idea that the problem is somewhere out there, when, in fact, the problem is within us. It will take a change in us as leaders to innovate new futures.