This week is special. After church the men are going to gather in the upper room and there we will recognize something that has already occurred. While it is not unheard of for men to fit well into the role of “captain obvious” this has a bit more significant. We are going to be recognizing in a formal way the transition from boy to man.
Rites of passage have largely disappeared from our culture and the result is confusion. 14 year olds can be tried as an adult if their crime is heinous enough but no one really considers a 14 year old an adult. When you are 16 you can earn the right to drive a 4000 pound weapon, but people don’t think of you as an adult then either. 18 year olds can sign up for the military without mommy or daddy having anything to do with it, they can vote, and get married. They are kind of adults. A person who is 21 can demonstrate that they are they are chronologically an adult by purchasing alcohol, and then many who celebrate the moment promptly dispel the notion by irresponsibly and stupidly getting drunk. The confusion continues and even has a name of “delayed adolescence” to describe the adults living in the basement hoping to be able to sell their level 100 World of Warcraft characters. (The record is $10K). There is a hole, a missing element in our culture and while we can complain about it (it is actually more fun to mock it) the reality is that we are not helpless. This is an opportunity for the church.
The church should be a light in a dark place. We should be the place where people find help in negotiating the rapids of this clueless culture, and we can. We can create meaningful rites of passage that both recognize adulthood but also bestow adulthood with all its privileges and responsibilities. We can raise our children with the expectations of when that will come so that they can both eagerly anticipate it but also make sure they are ready to assume that mantle. These rights of passage should be reasonable and be able to translate to the overall culture we live in and can we please not tie them to reproductive potential?! The church needs to seize this opportunity. The church needs to create a Culture of Blessing.
This week we be talking about what that means. I hope you come and find out how you can be a part of it!
See you at church,
Pastor Chris
