I love to think I am being transformed to see the world with God’s perspective, but the pace of change and the pressure of political upheaval are perilous to navigate.
Enormous shifts in international security, technology, culture and even our human identity unbalance us all. They shake our certainties and give us analysis paralysis.
For women, the challenges of shifting roles have been enormous in the last 50 years and I’m pretty sure that God could see the threats to women’s worth when he outlined the consequences of sin – blame, shame, power inequalities. And pain at the basic place of our sexual identity.
Here are some changes impacting the personal experience of women over the last 50 years: life expectancy has increased, so women in many parts of the world expect to live into their 80s; women in all western nations are less likely to marry; they have fewer children and they have them later in life; nearly half the babies born today in the USA and the UK are born to unmarried parents.
This recasting of women’s lives is important for economic and social reasons, as well as personally. The idea of family, so central to society (and to church programs), looks very different to the 70’s model. We all want to live meaningful lives but we are unsure what our home and family will look like.
Some people of faith long to retreat into an idealised time of certainty where undefined but somehow implicitly understood ‘Christian family values’ were accepted as a norm. I don’t think that idealised time ever existed but it gives us a photo on the mantelpiece if we don’t want to face challenging realities.
But what if Christian women modelled a different route that faces changes with understanding, and values family and community at all ages and stages. Older women should engage with and mentor younger women, championing younger women’s idealism, capacity and skills; gen Y and Z could appreciate the dynamic experience of their mothers’ generation, and help them keep on learning.
Throughout history, change and disruption have shaken our world. We can discuss big questions about sex, marriage, children, gender, money, work and ageing. And together, we can navigate the complexity without becoming bitter or hopeless.
I need, and we all need, to remind ourselves that there is a way through the wasteland. It does not come from nostalgia about the past, nor from closing our minds and hearts, nor from seeing salvation in dubious political movements.
When the Israelites, who yet again had rejected God, faced crisis in the shape of the mighty Babylonian empire, God sent a message through Isaiah the prophet, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
The solution is spiritual renewal and strength.
At Rise 26, we want to explore the challenges, name the broken shards and see God’s path through the changes that make us very unsettled, or which threaten our ‘former things’.
We need to be having conversations with people of all ages to understand history and to see that new things offer new opportunities for the church to grow the Kingdom of God.
We are encouraging women established in their leadership to sponsor a woman under 40 to participate in Rise 26. You can recommend a younger leader here.