The other day I was
collecting money at a charity event and someone asked if we could take anything
but cash. If the right person was there,
we could use an app on his phone to take credit cards, but for the most part we
were taking cash. As we waited for the
guy with the app to come back, we started talking, and this young man informed
me that he had recently been at a crypto-currency conference, and tried to
explain what it was. I just learning about things like venmo and square and
this guy is talking about money that doesn’t really exist except, apparently,
in cyber space. There’s about 45 years difference in our ages, we’re both
Americans, we both were speaking English, but we might as well have been from
different planets.
And that seems to be a
major problem for our society and for our churches today. Different generations
have different languages, different values, different aspirations, different
work ethics, and yes, even different meaning for words that have been in use in
this country for decades, even centuries.
Faith
for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon by David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock addresses this issue in a
research-based way, and look at what’s happening in local churches as the
younger generations become totally immersed in technology, and older
generations are quickly becoming left further and further behind.
For some
people it appears that the gap is so wide that it appears there is no way to
bridge it, but Kinnaman and Matlock have hope that the Church will prevail. The
differences are not as great as they mean seem at first blush. It will just take
some willingness to see things through the eyes of another generation, and then
trust that Christ has got this.
I received
a copy of this book from the publisher as a member of the launch team. I was
expected to read the book and share my thoughts about it on my blog and by
writing a review.
Although
I did not find this book as helpful as some of the other books I’ve read by
Kinnaman, I would still recommend it to pastors and ministry leaders
4/5
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