Church, Culture and Mission in the 21st Century

John and his wife Olive, have led weekends at Hilton Church on 2 occasions during the past decade. John is a wonderfully stimulating thinker and speaker, and if you have the time to go to this event, we are sure you will find it very worthwhile.
Friday 25 May (7.30 pm) and Saturday 26 May (10.00 am) at St. John's Episcopal Church, Southside Road, Inverness Professor John Drane will be speaking on Church, Culture and Mission in the 21st Century, in two sessions. Come to both if you can, or just one if that is all that is possible. The subject matter covers key issues for Christians and the Christian church. John Drane is a Baptist minister who was most recently professor of practical theology at Aberdeen University and is now a professor at Fuller Seminary in California. He has written very widely on the challenges of modern mission in a shifting culture and with competing understandings of spirituality. Part of what Drane says is:
The Christian church is in decline all over the western world. Yet people today are more conscious than ever before of the need for a ‘spiritual’ dimension to life. As a Christian, I am concerned about this - though as a scholar of contemporary culture, I don’t need to look far to understand the reasons for it. In my best-selling book The McDonaldization of the Church I suggested that Christianity has become over-rationalized in a way that prevents the message of Jesus from being heard by today’s people. I believe that without radical reform, church as we know it has no future. But that need not be the end of the story. All over the world, the core values of Jesus’ teaching are being rediscovered and new forms of church are emerging in the most unlikely places. Committed and courageous leadership can make a difference, but most church leaders have not been trained or equipped for this. While no one individual can accomplish this by themselves, after thirty years of working in theological education and in active Christian ministry, I think I have learned a thing or two about this challenge.