Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

Take a look at the trailer, or "sizzle reel", that WonderCafe is pitching to media outlets in hopes of making a full-length documentary on the positive spiritual based street art movement happening around the world.

Brought to you by Wondercafe.ca and First United Church Mission, the Paint Your Faith project hit the city of Vancouver in April 2010 with a stunning display of contemporary street art.

Working as collective, four internationally acclaimed aerosol artists -- Faith47 (South Africa), Titi Freak (Brazil), Peeta (Italy), and Vancouver's own Indigo -- brought their own expressions of faith to a unique and inspiring mural on the city's Downtown Eastside. As it was being created, the mural became a sign of hope for the DTES, bringing together the community in new and surprising ways.

For more information, see www.paintyourfaith.ca, or you can visit the Paint Your Faith Vancouver mural at 55-57 W. Hastings Street, across from the Woodwards Building.

Photo: Mathieu Struck*

The modern age was ushered in by the Enlightenment (mid-1600s to early 1800s). One characteristic of the Enlightenment framework was a rejection of tradition and religious sources of authority in favour of reason and knowledge. Over time, the modern age became wed to the idea of progress and the conviction that science had the ability to make things bigger and better and to solve any problem that arose. The deep assumption was that if and when we could control the natural world we would continue to grow in wealth, health, and leisure.

In the modern age religion became private - a personal matter between ourselves and God, a principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Reason and knowledge were part of the public realm - this is the time of the rise in public schools, universities, political parties, as well as capitalism. In the modern age we sought certainty, freedom, and progress.

Most of us in the church were born and raised in the modern age or by modern-age parents. At most, we will be students of the postmodern age.

Postmodernity refers to the progressive loss of confidence in the Enlightenment framework and process. Since 1945 the air has gone out of the Enlightenment balloon, with rapid deflation during the 1970s and 1980s.

Postmodernity has given birth to Green politics and anti-consumerism. Anxiety and fear seem to be more prevalent, perhaps a result of declining confidence that we can solve the challenges ahead - short and long term - through using science and reason. In the postmodern world, knowledge is no longer seen as inherently good. Alongside this culture of suspicion has also grown a new emphasis and delight in inclusivity and wonder. 

As society moves along the shift from modern to postmodern, what are some of the implications for the church and ministry?

Excerpted from the Emerging Spirit booklet, "Congregational Ministry in a New World," which can be downloaded here in full, along with study questions (log in required).

*Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathieustruck/212751235/

The Christian church seeks to be a community rooted in faith and engaged in the world.

We root ourselves in faith through worship, spiritual practices, caring for each other, and learning together. We yearn to share our faith with those we love and with a world that is hungry for spiritual food. We want our own lives to have meaning, to make a difference for good in God's world.

All of this means that God calls us into relationship with the world, all of the world, not just those people who look like us and think like us. We are called to understand this world in which God calls us to minister.

The world has changed! And you know this.

We no longer live in a world where: