Communicating in the Post-Modern Church

by Ray Waddle

It's a world where people say, “I’m spiritual, not religious...”

And a culture where Sunday isn’t sacred any more, and neither is Bible reading...

And a climate where people don’t trust politicians, scientists or preachers.

Yet it’s also an era where hunger for God is as great as ever…

Welcome to the postmodern world— hard to define but definitely the world we’re in, says the Rev. Jim Kitchens of Nashville, speaking at the annual Synod Communications Seminar.

Jim Kitchens

Churches need to learn to speak to it.

“We’re cursed, or blessed, to be living in the middle of a huge culture shift,” said Kitchens, minister at Second Presbyterian Church and author of The Postmodern Parish: New Ministry for a New Era (Alban Institute).

“The Good News doesn’t change, but how we communicate it will.”

“Postmodern” is one of those “squishy, hip” terms that might be too vague to mean anything, Kitchens said. But the signs of the times are clear: People are experiencing the world, and the church, in ways different from the old days.

Suspicion of authority, secular or religious, is widespread. A pluralistic view of religion no longer assumes the truth of Christianity is self-evident. Information is fragmented and individualized in an era of 500 channels and 70 million web sites.

Kitchens came to the Nashville church in 2003 after 25 years of parish ministry in California, where he could watch postmodern trends take shape. They now touch the whole country, including the old Bible belt of the South.

The scene might look confusing, but the church has a chance to connect with postmodern folks, Kitchens believes. More people want worship that engages all the senses, not a long wordy sermon. They want truth about Jesus told with less jargon and more story-telling. They’re warming to the latest discoveries of physics, which leave more mystery to account for, more openness to God as an explanation.

Mainstream culture might be in fragments now, more decentralized, but people still want the Christian story, he said: “We can stand up and unapologetically tell them who we are and what we believe. There's more competition now, but there's always been competition.”

(Ray Waddle, a veteran religion writer based in Nashville, is author of A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time, published by Upper Room Books).