The Seattle Times recently posted an article in their weekly magazine, Pacific Northwest, titled “Artistic & Religious.” The article highlighted groups where “creative Christians are taking down the walls between faith and art.” Some gather in coffee houses and pubs, others in private houses.

We hear predictions that Christianity will be dead within a generation. Groups such as these in Seattle and other places indicate that Christians are finding new ways to express their faith, not dying away. This pattern has persisted since the first gentile Christian churches grew out of gatherings of Jewish Christian believers.

Christians are, as Jesus said, in the world but not of it. In other words, we are exiles, refugees of a sort (a theme of this blog). The constant task for our communities is to engage with the changing world, not stagnate within yesterday’s structures.

We all know that a world of Facebook and twitter requires us to incorporate new technology. Even more, we must relate to an America in which the fastest growing religious preference is “no preference.” By contrast, Christianity grows rapidly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Christianity is indeed a world religion, as it has never been before. We must learn the vocabulary of today’s world, of both America and the countries beyond our borders.