The New Normal
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)
Ok. I admit it. The phrase has been thrown around way too much over the past year! Not unlike the words “unprecedented”, “essential” , “social distance”, “Zoom”, and “pivot”. But the idea of “normal”, and especially “a new normal”, are elusive terms that have yet to be given full shape or definition. One reason for this is that we are still not there yet. When the world shut down in the spring of 2020, every church leadership podcast began to prognosticate where the next months and even years would lead us. The answers ranged from temporary meeting strategies for Sundays to the colossal breakdown and dismantling of the church as we know it.
So now that we are in the spring of 2021, what has changed? In my last article for The Bonhoeffer Project, I talked about the death of normal, equating the journey of 2020 through early 2021 to the stages of the grieving process. Now that we have come to some semblance of acceptance (the final stage of the process) of our global situation, the necessity of adaptation and change in church leadership and practice, and, for many of us, the integration of innovative techniques to continue the work of the Kingdom in the world, where do we go from here? What will be the new normal moving forward for disciple-making churches?
I think the answer lies in several spaces.
First, theologically.
Just because the world seems to be falling apart, doesn’t change the truth of God’s word. The world has been falling apart (or being made new) since Genesis 3, and God’s Word and purposes in the world have continued to move forward. I have to remind myself of this when I get into the “weeds” of arguments concerning culture, morality, and politics. It helps to keep the “chicken little” voice in my head at bay. Ultimately, we live in a moment in time where the gospel applies to this cultural moment as it has to every moment in the past and will for every moment in the future. This macro view of God’s real work in the world helps to keep me grounded, slay my desire for emotional outburst, and reorient me to remember my calling to carry out the Great Commission.
That said, it is also a great reminder to those we lead as we teach them to observe everything that Jesus commanded them (Matt. 28:20). Lest we forget, God is always doing something “new” in the world (cue D.C. Talk’s “Nu Thang”). Does that mean that what He has done in the past is invalid? Of course not! But God’s Kingdom is always advancing, even under persecution (Matthew 11:12), and we are invited into that gloriously Divine vocation. Though I don’t have the space for a full exegesis on this topic, one biblical text may give us some encouragement. It is found in Isaiah 43.
In this text, the prophet is reassuring God’s people that God is still committed to them in spite of their foibles and failures (43:1-7). As such, they are to be witnesses for Yahweh as the one true God (43:8-13), who promises to defeat their enemies for their sake (43:18-21). The chapter comes to a crescendo in vs. 18-21, where God says,
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise”.1
What is the new thing? In Isaiah’s context, it was the defeat of the Babylonians. The people had remembered what God had done at the Red Sea, but God through Isaiah is now instructing them not to only hang on to His work in the past but to accept and receive what God was doing in their present and future. As theologian Alec Moyer says, “The Lord always has greater things in store; he is revealed in the past, but he is always more than the past revealed”.2 The point? Even in the driest of deserts, God is faithful to His people in their present context, and as such, we can have hope. This is not an unrealistic hope placed in systems or people, but a real hope grounded in the presence, promises, and provision of God. As such, hope becomes the “new normal” for the people of God, in Isaiah’s day and ours as well.
Second, pragmatically.
If hope is the “new normal”, then this begs a question. Are we building disciples who exhibit hope as the fuel for how they think, speak, and live? When other believers or outsiders encounter them, do they come away with a sense of gloom and despair or faith and trust? In other words, below the surface of all the cultural issues we face today, is there an underlying current of hope? A hope based in One who never changes. A hope founded in His actions on our behalf. A hope driving transformation as empowered by His Spirit. A hope that is eternal and not sidelined by the voice of the culture around them. This introduces a second, more pragmatic question: As you implement your disciple-making strategy (if you have one) in your local context, does it move people into a life of hope? In your teaching, groups, service, worship, etc.…, are you intentionally leading people toward knowledge and action that is fostered by an unshakable hope? Here is a quick litmus test. Take a quick scan through the social media feeds of those you lead (as well as your own). What is the prevailing theme? If someone was going to create a theology/philosophy based on what is being posted, what would it be? If a non-believer was to evaluate Christianity based on those feeds, what would be their conclusion? This was a sobering test for me! I invite you into my pain!
Third, missiologically.
A real hope like the one described in Isaiah 43 is one that radically engages the culture around us. This is not some kind of monastic regression from the issues of the day. Conversely, it is a reformulation of our thinking and feelings so that we might engage those issues from a platform of hope. It allows us to walk into the tension of our culture in a way that provides answers based on God’s unchanging character and love. It moves us outward from an “us” versus “them” mentality into our true vocation of being Jesus’ witnesses (Acts 1:8) to a lost world of His power and glory. As such, we enter into what author J.R. Briggs calls “the sacred overlap”. He says,
“The Church is not to be found at the ‘center’ of a left/right political world. The Church is to be a species of its own kind, confounding both left and right, and finding its identity from the center of God’s life. If we can grow to see Christ, who is present and active in that messy middle, if we can notice the one who is inviting us to join him in that hope-filled mess, then the church can actually become the kind of church Jesus intended it to be.3
As such, to use a computing analogy, the church should have a different operating system than the world. Our central processing unit should be Jesus as He determines our past, present, and future. Therefore, we are freed up from the prison of other people’s emotional, cultural, and political malaise to engage anyone we meet with a hope that is real and sustainable. God is truly doing a new thing among His people. He is delivering us from the Babylonian exile of captivity to culture and returning us to our original vocation of making disciples who are grounded in a real, eternal, and living hope. As Peter says,
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:2-9 (ESV)
1 Isaiah 43:18-21 ESV.
2 Moyer, J. Alec, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Vol. 20 (Downer’s Grove, IL., 1999), 306.
3 Briggs, J.R., The Sacred Overlap (Seedbed Resources), p. xxv. Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
