In my early twenties upon moving to Birmingham, AL, I attended for three
months a mega-church with an impressive growth rate. The pastor
regularly boasted about the church’s increasing attendance in between
opportunities to talk about the large audiences, to which he was
speaking around the world. My last Sunday was capped by the pastor’s
proclamation that the incredible prosperity of the church resulted from
the “cutting edge ministry,” which they performed (and, oh yea, God
too.) I exited with a bad taste in my mouth and a headache from the
number of times I rolled my eyes that Sunday.
Fast forward ten years. I had been working for six years as a youth pastor at the Cathedral Church of the Advent. During a meeting with a business leader in town, where I explained our somewhat unique approach to reaching postmodern teens through a fragmented ministry of smaller, intimate clusters of students, the entrepreneur said, “Wow, it sounds like you guys are really working at the tip of the spear.” As I burned with pride, the voice of my ego whispered, “You might even say that we are on the....cutting edge.” In the one- and only one- potentially cutting edge moment of my life (which lasted ninety seconds), I felt this rush of pride as if my efforts made the difference and as if I had distinguished myself from other ministries. (These are ironically vain sentiments for someone who still uses a flip phone.) Continue at Cameron Cole
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