Today I had the privilege of addressing a gathering of 60 key leaders in the church across Melbourne, representatives were present from Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches, ministries and colleges. The reason for the gathering was to release the information from a two year report into the state of the Church here in Melbourne. Check out more details here
One of the highlights was hearing one of the key authors of the report Phillip Hughes of the Christian Research Association speak. Phillip is always a fount of knowledge as to where we are as a culture, especially in terms of contemporary religion. One of the key points that Phillip made was that increasingly the concept of secularisation is failing us as an accurate means of describing our culture. Rather than naming the beast of secularisation as the cause of diminishing congregations in the West, Phillip identified a consumerist approach to life and religion and our glut of personal choice as the reason for the decline in church attendance in the West. The erosion of the traditional ideas of civic duty and responsibility were deeply affecting the vitality of the church in the West. Phillip used the term Post-Traditional in order to describe our culture. Phillip’s analysis many of my own hunches and convictions. That is the belief that one of the great needs of our age is to call people away from the idols of radical individualism, hyper-consumerism and to return to a biblical understanding of discipleship.
