From other steps: Louisville

4/9-12

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate Louisville on its own terms, though it’s still an unlikely location for the national offices of a church with missions throughout the world. I enjoy my time there.

But this time...the meeting is at a hotel on an island of land in the middle of an industrial park in urban sprawl wasteland. Ten miles from downtown. A thirty dollar cab ride from the airport. I go for a walk and keep running into highways, cul de sacs, strip malls and car dealerships. And under the I64 overpass, I find a homeless encampment of a half dozen or more people in a jumble of sleeping bags, cardboard, aluminum foil and empty 40 bottles. Late morning, people stirring in their bags....

Finally make it back through the maze of highway cloverleafs to the hotel. And hear muzak in all its numbing audible blandness. I am confounded....

                         * * * *

Meeting take aways, after a panel of young adults...

• In the past, the pathway to connecting with a church was believe, belong, behave. Today it’s behave, belong, believe. Doctrine, theology, belief, the least important....doing matters. 
• Young adults will come if something is going on. Something that makes a difference. That has something to do with changing the world, in big or small ways. It’s not music or gimmicks.
• They’re looking for real community. Intergenerational relationships. Mentors. 
• Authenticity is the bottom line.
• People are looking for radical discipleship. What does that mean in any of our settings? They know it when they see it.

One young man says, I’m sick to death of, have no interest in, a sanitized Jesus.....