BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

It occurs to me that one of the things most missing in 21st century life is passion.  I’m not talking about the sexual thing between love-struck couples. There’s plenty of that!   What I’m talking about is that there are so few people today who are passionate about anything…life, politics, religion, or church, to name but a few.  Lackadaisical might be an apt word to describe the lack of energy and commitment that is so prevalent among so many, especially in the church.

The most passion I’ve seen in a long time was on election night, as that enormous crowd gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park to celebrate Senator Obama’s election to the presidency.  I was so impressed as the tv cameras focused on faces alight with passion and excitement.  I saw more passion, hope, and energy that night than I have seen in the last 21 years of my life as a United Methodist minister.

In Thomas Friedman’s book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, he writes these hopeful words:  Our young people are so much more idealistic than we deserve them to be…still eager to be enlisted — to fix education, research renewable energy, repair our infrastructure, help others.  They want our country to matter again, they want to be summoned…to some great project worthy of America…to nation-building not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but nation-building in America.

I think he is right, and I hope some of those young people will show the same enthusiasm for the Church of Jesus Christ.  If we can’t raise them up and turn them loose, the future looks mighty dim.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday