I'm so confused. I guess it all started when my kid turned 16 and joined a punk band. I know I am not the only clergy with a kid who is punk. (Hey, I always heard that Alice Cooper's dad was a rev. but maybe that's just an urban legend). Anyway, here I am the pastor of what I think is a hip church that I planted 6 years ago and all of the sudden I am staring out at a congregation sprinkled with kids who seem absolutely bored--bored--bored (including my punk kid). So I have begun thinking . . . how are we supposed to do church anyway? are we all doomed to be one generation churches that thrive for 20 years and then go into decline? are we captives to the sociology of organizations, or can we break out of this bondage to the way things have always been (at least for the last 50 years). So I am going to start thing out loud through this journal about figuring out the future and what it really means to be the church, to be a person who follows Jesus, to bring the kindgom of God to the culture we find ourselves in.