you're all going to sell out

many of you know that i am a Christian. and for the last few years my wife and i have been involved in a church plant, called tower mosaic. it's been a difficult time, and we continue to press on in our attempt to do church in a different way, to live missionally, and to really be a community of faith within our community.

anyway, as i was reading the shaping of things to come the other day in stirred in me some questions that i thought i would throw out here. the questions don't reflect on any one person, or any one situation, but are more general. so, please, if you feel like i'm talking about you, don't. and please don't get upset. also, i don't think these questions just apply to church or my setting, i think they also have a more general application, so feel free to answer if you're coming from a different perspective or place in life.

many people in our generation want something different in life, in the way we work within organizations, and in the church context, the way we do church. we say we want to be different, to be innovative. we say we don't want to be influenced by the consumeristic mentality.

these are good things. they are things i have said, and continue to say. yet, it seems that in time, people all sell out. they settle for something else. or choose something else. they embrace the same old methodology. i notice that this often happens around the issue of children. i'm not blaming children, or people for having children, but this seems to be a common factor.

so why do we do it? we do we settle for the same old? why do we buy into, and teach the next generation to do it the same way? why are the "revolutionary" ideas great, until it really applies to me?